Gotham PD
by Jericho Lament
Summary: What happened to Shift after losing his magic? He's placed by Batman in the Gotham Police Department. This is an AU created by me and Mandalore Jaig.
1. Chapter 1

Adam Kriticos put on his cap. It was heavier than he thought it would be. _It's probably the badge on the front of it_ he thought. Other cops gave him skeptical glances. This kid looked about 20 years old, had only done a few months at the Academy and was now a full police officer. A rookie, but still an officer. He was an untested commodity and therefore was not to be trusted. Maybe in another city or another time he wouldn't have garnered such harsh attention. But this was Gotham City. A large number of police officers had been fired in a recent attempt to remove corruption. As a result the department had been flooded with rookies. But everyone was watching him specifically. Commissioner Gordon had been the one to bring him in, or so the story went at this particular precinct. Adam tried to readjust the body armor underneath his collared shirt and jacket. He felt uncomfortable and out of place. Adam was used to sweatshirts and jeans. Now he was wearing a uniform that came with its own assembly instructions. He looked around the locker room and caught the suspicious glances of a few of the more veteran officers. He ignored them.

Today wasn't the day to buck the system. Today was the day he would meet his new Captain and be assigned a partner. Then he would be in for all the usual crap work all rookies had to deal with. Walking a beat in bad neighborhoods, endless paperwork, and putting up with crap from his seniors. There was also the crappy pay, but that didn't matter to him. He was wealthy enough in his own right that it didn't matter. What did chafe him was having a chain of command to follow. That was something he had always had difficulties with. His outlook on life typically put him at odds with any majority. But in this instance he was at the very bottom of the chain of command. He tried to keep his dark mood from showing and walked to the sergeant's office.

Sergeant Ricky, short for Ricardo Esperanza, was a man of Hispanic descent in his mid thirties. He was filling out a form, humming something to himself.

"Sir?" Adam asked. He stood in the doorway, hands down by his sides. His superior looked up and smiled. He must have been in a very good mood.

"Morning!" He said cheerfully. He motioned for Adam to sit down. Then he went on. "You look like an observant guy. Notice anything so far?" Adam's eyebrows came together slightly. Oh yeah. He'd noticed a lot of things. Like the names on most of the doors being wrong. And the large amount of empty offices. But Adam didn't say anything. "Not a talker though, huh?" The Sergeant put his hat on and got up from his chair. He motioned for Adam to follow him. "Some people like that in a rookie." They went on a tour of the station with Ricky introducing other officers and Shift politely shaking hands. Eventually they ended up in front of the Commissioner's office. Adam raised an eyebrow but kept his mouth shut. Ricky knocked on the door.

"Come in." Sitting behind a desk was James Gordon, hair going from gray to white, big glasses and a trench coat. He looked worn down to Adam.

"You asked me to bring him to you when he came in, sir." Ricky said, his face serious.

"Yes. You can go now Sergeant." Ricky left the office. Adam still hadn't said a word. "I assume you know why you're here." Adam had an idea but he shook his head, wanting the old cop to spell it out. "Batman gave me a file on you. I doubt it's everything but it's still pretty thick. You lived on the streets here for a couple years." Adam nodded. The older man went on. "I also know about your meta-human abilities. Useful abilities for an investigator, for a police officer. But I also have a psychological evaluation and a history of your conduct. Your record of disregard for authority and rules comes to an end right now. Understand?" Shift nodded. "Good. Now that we have that out of the way there's one other thing we need to talk about. Your fellow officers might not be as understanding of your, uh, skill set as I am. I suggest you keep your status as a meta-human secret. At least from the general ranks." Gordon hesitated for a moment. "You can be an incredible contributor to justice in this city, and-"

"I seriously doubt that." Adam said, interrupting. Gordon gave him a level look. "I did live on the streets for 2 years. The amount of corruption here is staggering. I've been to Suicide Slums, the Narrows, East End. I will give my all to help the people of this city but don't patronize me with grand visions." Adam's anger burned deep in him. Gordon recognized it and even approved of it. But he couldn't condone such disrespect.

"You will address me as Commissioner or Sir. Are we clear officer Kriticos?" Adam nodded. "Good." he pressed the intercom button on his desk. "Send her in." A moment later another rookie officer in full uniform walked in. She had dark skin but mixed racial features. Adam watched her walk in out of the corner of his eye. She wasn't smiling either. "Officer Davis, this is Officer Kriticos. He'll be your new partner. He'd fresh from the Academy so you'll need to show him the ropes."

"Yes sir." she said without enthusiasm. She was older than Adam by maybe a few years but she clearly had spent more than one as a police officer. "C'mon." She said. Adam followed her out of the office. He noted again that his shoes were not very comfortable. Stupid in his opinion. If he had to run they would slow him down. Too much walking would give a normal person blisters. Stupid. Several pairs of eyes followed the pair as they walked to the motor-pool. "Our beat runs along-" Adam noted everything she said with a mild interest. Part of him accepted his new role while another part chaffed at doing something he felt was beneath him. He's stood at much greater heights, done important things. He reminded himself that this was important too. He'd help people, save lives. But he was also working within severe constraints, at least, compared to the ones he was used to. He shifted focus, examining his new partner. She was shorter than him, somewhere around five and a half feet. Her physique was more or less hidden by the heavy jacket but she moved like someone with heavier muscle. Adam took note of every single glance their way but kept his posture passive and his expression neutral.

"I actually lived in that neighborhood for a few months. I know my way around." She looked at him, surprised.

"I didn't know you were local." she said, not breaking her stride.

"Only for the last 5 years or so." Adam replied. They signed out their car and got the keys. A few minutes later they were on their way to on one of the neighborhoods around Suicide Slums. It was not a nice place. Gangs were operating out in the open, a decent number of the apartment buildings were suffering from disrepair. The cars parked on the street ran the gamut from broke to last year's Cadillac.

"That's the Lords your looking at. Lords of the Avenues. They deal cocaine and meth, do some small arms dealing and loan sharking. With a few cases of witness intimidation and murder for good measure." Susan Davis, Adam's new partner, said with a significant amount of disgust. Adam kept looking around, putting faces into his memory. The glass bottle that hit the windshield made him jump. Susan just kept on driving.

"Why aren't we chasing down and arresting someone for assault?" Adam asked, trying to get his heart rate down.

"So you want me to stop and park a cop car in the middle of gangland and chase down some two bit lowlife without backup?" She sneered. "Maybe I could chase him down an alley and drop my gun on the way. Get real." Adam got the picture. Cops wouldn't intervene here unless absolutely necessary. At least they showed up. In the Narrows or Slums cops never showed up. But Adam didn't care. He wanted to chase down the punk and scare him straight. He knew he could do it too. But he was supposed to go human while on duty.

"I get it. But nothing will change if we don't do anything. If we stop and frisk half these shirtless morons I guarantee we'll find drugs and weapons."

"You think I'm an idiot? Of course we would. And start a war in the mean time. Assuming someone doesn't just gun us down while we're not moving. The Commissioner didn't stick me with a nutcase did he?" She glanced at him and didn't like the look in his eyes. Adam wasn't blinking. His hands were clenched tight. "Did he?" she asked more forcefully.

"No." Adam said flatly. He noted a group of guys pushing around a younger kid. One grabbed his backpack and shoved the kid down. He couldn't be more than 12. The kid made a grab for his pack but one of the men backhanded him. "Please tell me we're stopping."Adam said, pointing out the group. His partner flipped on the lights and siren. She called in the stop to dispatch so they would know what was happening. Adam smiled for the first time that day. They got out and locked the car.

"We have a problem here gentlemen?" Susan said in a clear voice. Adam counted 6 men from 18 to late 20's. Apparently it wasn't an ethnic gang either. The leader was a big guy, crew cut blonde hair and blue eyes. Adam could tell he was in charge because of the placement of the gang members. Second in charge was a Hispanic guy, he was the one holding the backpack. Then there was an Asian man, tattooed to a ridiculous degree and three black men of varying height and weight. As one they turned to look at the cops intruding on their turf.

"Nah officer. Just having a little chat with my cousin." The Hispanic man said. The German looking guy just stood there smiling.

"Really? People usually use words when they're chatting." Susan said. Adam was content to stand and watch for the moment. He was looking closely to see if he could spot a weapon. Arresting these guys would make it a good day. The kid grabbed his backpack back and ran.

"You scared him officer. He's afraid of people carrying guns."

"Yeah, I'm sure that's what it is. Have a nice day gentlem-" the Asian man made eye contact with Adam and made a rude hand gesture. Adam smiled at him. But the look in his eyes was murderous. The gang member recognized the look and started at Adam. He grabbed the rookie cop's shoulder but Adam knocked his hand away. The leader held him back.

"Have a nice day officers." The blonde man said firmly. The rest of his gang crowded in behind him. Adam stepped up closer to Susan. She tipped her hat and walked back to the car. Adam followed behind her but kept looking over his shoulder. Violence had been so close to the surface just then. He honestly wished it would have happened.

"Keep walking, pig!" One of the men shouted. Adam turned slightly but Susan elbowed him in the side.

"You heard him. Keep walking." she muttered to her partner. He could smell her fear and it ticked him off. But he couldn't blame her. Any ordinary human would be outmatched in that situation. He'd smelled gun oil on them. At least one of them was carrying. Adam kept walking like his partner said. His itch for violence wasn't a good enough reason to get his brand new partner killed. He managed to catch a gang sign being flashed at him out of the corner of his eye. It made him smile, this time in satisfaction. He'd gotten them upset enough to act territorial. Neither of the officers said anything until they were driving away. "You are crazy." Susan muttered.

"Not according to the psych eval." Adam joked darkly. "If you show any kind of weakness your ability to deter them drops. I let them know I'm willing to step up to them."

"They'll kill you if you dis them like that." Susan said. Adam smiled slightly. He'd honestly love it if they tried. There were rules that held his conduct within strict boundaries. Until he was assaulted with intent to kill that is. Then all bets were off. The rest of the day was uneventful. They returned the car and went to their respective homes. Adam had a nice set-up in the richer part of Gotham. Two bedroom fully furnished apartment. It was a mile from the station so he decided to walk. Back in his more comfortable hoody and jeans he strolled down the sidewalk. It was dark already, the number of people on the street had dropped to those who were foolhardy or unable to be inside. Adam saw a number of homeless. Men, women, and children. It was still early in fall. No one would freeze tonight. Adam remembered what that was like. Before he could flash back to those less pleasant memories he caught sight of gang members coming toward him on the street. Perfect. He kept moving forward and made sure his body posture looked afraid. Slightly hunched over, arms tight against him, eyes pointed down. He had to work to keep from smiling. One of them pointed him out.

"You lost man?" One of them said. Adam didn't so much as look at him. He tried to push his way past but one of them shoved him to the sidewalk. He scrambled to his feet, purposely stumbling and giving them time to surround him. They did. "Who you think you are?" Another one said. He got up to his feet. Adam didn't bother hiding his smile anymore. "What's so funny?" Someone shoved him from behind and into the thugs in front of him. He felt a punch to his gut and one to the side of his head. It hurt a little, but it was nothing compared to what he had planned for them. Then he heard someone grunt and fall. The gang started shouting and Adam glanced behind him. A dark figure stood there, two of the thugs down at his feet. Adam's mood soured. Batman was going to steal all his fun. No sooner had he thought that when he saw a handful of small gleaming shapes fly from the Dark Knight's fingers. Five guys dropped around him. The last two tried to charge Batman but he laid them out in moments. Then he grabbed Adam by the shirt and hauled him into an alley.

"Thanks for that." Adam said sarcastically.

"You're not supposed to draw attention to yourself Adam." Batman said coldly. "The Court is more important than these low level street trash."

"Thankless job, constantly alone at night. I've played my part for months, played the nice little mouse. I'm going nuts. It's been no fighting, no magic, no contact with anyone from my real life. Raven is going to be so mad at me for this."

"You agreed to this. You know how important it is that we clear them out of Gotham. They've destroyed countless lives, shattered families." Adam flinched at that.

"I don't know how much longer I can take it. Do you know what it's like to drive around this city, watching people get hurt and not do anything? And then to go to an empty apartment and try to live with yourself? If I don't find a thread to pull at soon I'm going to scrap subtlety." A polite way for saying he would work his way through every gangland schmuck he could find until a big fish came after him. Then, once he found one member of the Court of Owls he'd hand him over to Batman and that would be that. If he still had his former level of power he could use a divination spell to get the info and it might take a day at most.

"Patience Adam. You're exactly the kind of new recruit they'd want. They'll make contact with you soon. In the mean time you'll need to break a few rules, let them know that you're willing to work against the police if necessary." Adam's eyes flared with yellow. Batman had just made his leash longer. He already knew what rule he was going to break. He felt the itchy sensation in his mouth as his canines elongated. The pressure in his fingertips as claws began to sprout. He reigned it in. No sense I getting too eager about it now. His eyes dimmed back to the normal light green. Batman knew he was walking a dangerous line here, but he needed Adam for this. He would draw the Court like moths to a flame. They needed soldiers and enforcers now that most of their Talons had been put into the deep-freeze. Adam fit that bill perfectly. Too perfectly.

The Court needed to replace their army of killers. Adam knew as much about life and death as most of the Talons had in life. And what's more, he'd killed before. They'd be able to smell the blood on him. Simply put, Adam was perfect for the job and that was what made it all so difficult. Batman trusted him to a point, but Adam was unpredictable. He was sure Adam would get the job done, but what kind of damage might he do in the mean time? How badly had he meant to beat those thugs? Would he have killed them? Batman wanted to say no but with Adam he was never really sure. He'd seen the young man's eyes flash in excitement as the gang pushed him into a corner. Those idiots hadn't known what kind of danger they had been in. They would never know but Batman might have saved their lives. "Patience. I know it's tempting to try fixing everything on your own." Adam snorted at that. "But stirring the waters here might get a lot of innocent people hurt."

"Yes, sir." Adam said. He threw in an insolent solute.

"Are the symptoms disappearing?" Batman asked, changing the subject.

"How would I know? I haven't been using magic. Not even for small things. If they saw me it would complicate things." He put a lot of emphasis on "they". The Court would observe him before they made contact, he knew that. So he'd been careful to act normal. About six months ago he'd lost his power source, had a creature of immense magical power leave his body and it had caused a number of problems. Every time he tried to use magic he experienced side effects. He wasn't sure if he even could use magic anymore. Well, aside from those abilities granted him as a lycanthrope.

"Good. Just a little longer now. Be patient." Adam grunted his assent and walked home. He still felt caged, but his little chat with Batman had settled him down. And given him something to look forward to. His hands twitched eagerly in anticipation. A little excessive force would look good on his resume. Maybe leaping into a dangerous situation, or getting a disciplinary suspension or reprimand would help. The possibilities made him lick his lips. At his core he was a creature of chaos. Or more accurately a creature of change. He knew Batman was using that to his advantage and he didn't really care. The Court's time was over, he would see to that. He would be the bloody star in the sky to herald the end of their reign.

It was another two weeks of normal police work before he had an opportunity to break the rules. His opportunity came when a tweaked drug addict held up a convenience store. Instead of waiting for backup he kicked the back door in and dropped the guy with a right hook. He got a stern talking to by the sarge, his partner had actually smacked the back of his head. Still no contact. A week later they responded to a call in the Narrows. An abusive boyfriend had grabbed some buddies and tried killing his girlfriend who had run off while pregnant. She called the cops and Susan had been the first to respond. But Adam had gotten to the perps first. He'd broken some bones on all three of the criminals and Susan had gone along with his "resisting arrest" story. But word went around the station that Adam had no problem knocking heads when necessary. That got him a meeting with the Commissioner who chewed him out. Adam didn't say anything that wasn't "Yes sir" or "No sir". But that night when he went home he began feeling so much better about his job.

When he arrived in his apartment he shut the door behind him and tossed his jacket over a chair. Then he froze. He could smell something strange. Someone had been in his apartment but the smell they'd left was really unpleasant. It wasn't a human stink it was some kind of disgusting chemical smell. Like formaldehyde and something musty. There was a knife stuck in the center of his kitchen table. On closer inspection the knife had pinned a piece of paper to the wood. Adam walked over, pulled the knife out of the table and picked up the paper. It was actually parchment, and old parchment at that.

It was a letter. It gave him a place, a time, and told him to come prepared. He grabbed the tiny capsule batman had given him months ago and swallowed it. That way the Dark Knight would be able to follow him. Then he tucked the knife into a pocket and headed to the location. It was a crappy bar in the East End. It was a place Adam wished he'd never heard of, let alone been to before. It was the drug and prostitution capitol of Gotham. Every single time he stepped foot there he had a woman with dead eyes proposition him in very obvious ways. And each time he declined he knew whichever woman it happened to be was punished in some way. He kept his head down and made it to End Run. He didn't see anyone he recognized or smell the messenger from before. So he went to the bar and ordered a beer. A bottle, not a tap drink. He wouldn't trust anyone in this hole not to try drugging him. He sat and drank for half an hour. Whoever sent the letter was late. His thoughts drifted to Raven, the empath he had formed a connection with shortly after losing most of his power. They had become friends, and maybe something more than that. But all of that had been cut short by this little assignment. Ever since she had been in his head he couldn't stop thinking about her. That, more than anything was the source of his bad temper.

"Adam Kriticos." Someone behind him said. Adam didn't turn around, he just grunted. "Are you prepared to be tested?" Adam took several deep breaths, trying to sort the person's scent from the smells permeating the room. It was difficult in that cramped space with so many people smoking and the sunk in odors of a bar.

"What kind of joke is this?" Adam said, going on the attack. "Is this some cop initiation crap, cause I'm really not in the mood."

"Are you prepared?" they simply asked again. He couldn't identify the voice as male or female. He couldn't pick out their scent. Whoever this person was they were already treading on his frayed nerves.

"What the hell. Yes, I'm prepared." Adam finished the beer. Then he turned around. A person in a heavy winter coat with the hood pulled up and wearing a white owl mask was standing there. Not a large person, physique completely hidden by the loose coat and sweatpants they were wearing. Adam narrowed his eyes. "Seriously, what is this? Some kind of weird joke? Cause I don't get it."

"This is your test, Mr Kriticos. Follow me." The masked person took off running out the door. Adam left a twenty on the bar and followed. Adam soon found that this person was a skilled acrobat. They managed to scale the side of a building in the time it took him to catch up. But he could play that game too. With a single springing leap he managed to grab the top of a streetlamp and swung himself onto the roof of the small building. "Very good. Try to keep up." The owl person dodged and danced halfway around the city with Adam hot on their heels. He kept his effort for a minimum and faked an increasing exhaustion. After half an hour the owl dropped into the sewers. Adam hesitated. The smell would choke off any advantage of his superior olfactory sense. But after a moment he descended into the dark stinking tunnels. His shoes splashed down in disgusting sludge. Adam cringed but flipped on the small flashlight he had brought. To make use of his darkvision would be tipping his hand too much. In a moment he spotted the white mask moving back along the tunnel. He followed at speed. They wound and twisted through various tunnels until Adam cornered the person in the mask in a dead end.

"Who are you? Why bring me here?" the owl didn't answer. Adam approached impatiently. He found out that was a mistake when the floor opened beneath him and he dropped. He flailed for a handhold to grasp but there was nothing but empty air to meet his hands. The hard impact with the ground managed to knock him out. His last thought was that he still knew nothing about the person in the mask except that they were very light on their feet.

Adam awoke in a brightly lit stone chamber. To his left was an ornate white fountain. To his right was an open stone box. At his feet was an archway entrance into a dark maze. Adam stayed still for a while, waiting to see if someone would approach. He counted his heartbeats, letting that concrete sense of time anchor his mind. He had fallen into a trap, which may be a test or may be a method of execution for failing. For now he would proceed as if it was a test. After counting a thousand heartbeats he sat up, quickly checking his pockets to see if they had left him what he brought with him when he left his apartment. The knife was still in his pocket, but his wallet and phone were gone.

"What kind of nonsense are you planning to put me through?" He said out loud. He received no reply. So he proceeded through the archway and into the maze. It stank of fear, of desperation, of despair and death. This was an execution ground, one meant to break a person before killing them. But that didn't mean it wasn't a proving ground. Adam walked down the blank corridors for hours, wondering if Batman would come for him, or if the transmitter even worked so far underground. Hours passed according to his heartbeat. Then nearly a day had gone by when he found another open chamber. He was greeted by a flash from an antique camera. When his vision cleared he saw a wall of portraits. The frames held the images of broken men and women. Hundreds of them. His anger began to boil. These were people. The Court had broken them for it's own amusement. This wasn't a public spectacle meant to correct behavior, this was torture done in the dark. Adam smashed the camera with a kick and went on his way, determined to find and punish those responsible. He had steeped himself in darkness far deeper than this petty cruelty. And he would share it with the Court before another day had passed. He wouldn't weaken for lack of food or water, but his control would slip a little more as time went on.

His footsteps were nearly silent in most situations, but in that soundless place they were loud. He was the only thing moving, the only thing creating sound. Probably designed to increase the stress level. Adam sneered at the setup. The desire to smash it all to pieces was becoming overwhelming. In his admittedly short experience it was a pathetic display. He sighed when he realized he was thinking in circles. No matter what he thought about all it did was circle back to how annoyed he was being here.

"I take it back, this place does seem to work. In a roundabout sorta way." He said out loud. It was too much to hope for a response but he was betting the Court heard him just fine. Hours later he stumbled into a room full of stone boxes. The lids had all been pushed to the side revealing an empty space. Adam could smell human bodies mixed with the same harsh chemical smell that had been in his apartment. The scent was stale and old. Whatever had been here was long gone. There was a solitude to the place, sort of like in a church cemetery, except it wasn't a positive feeling. It wasn't restful, it was a watchful place. It really ticked him off. Then he saw one of the coffins had a kind of emblem pressed onto the lid. This had obviously stored something the Court considered sacred.

Adam's reaction was as simple and primal as it was stupid and dangerous. He unzipped his pants and hosed it. He was fairly certain that the Court was watching him stumble around this maze and getting some kind of sick pleasure out of it. This was a petty revenge. It was their fault for leaving something valuable in here with him, he rationalized. In truth, his actions were having exactly the impact he'd hoped.

"That disrespectful little-" a member of the Court raged. They were all watching in a safe room, somewhat removed from their Labyrinth.

"I like him." Another said. "He shows the kind of spirit we need in our new Talons. And whose bright idea was it for us to store our Talons in the Labyrinth?" Several Court members shifted uneasily. They all wore the ceremonial snow owl masks. The slight differences in mask design designated a loose ranking system that was known only to the Court. The woman who had approved of Shift's bravado ranked quite high. The man who had complained was a fairly new member so he had nothing to say after she overruled him. In truth, many of the Owls were unhappy with Adam at that moment. One of the higher ranking ones spoke up.

"We haven't tested his combat skills yet. He's been in there more than a day, it's time for more substantial performance tests." Most of the room nodded at the elderly woman's proclamation. Adam would soon have a playmate to keep him company.


	2. Chapter 2

"You did what?" Nightwing had just come back into Gotham after six months away. And to his surprise he found the Batman had gone and done something crazy. "Bruce, I know how much you want these guys, but do you realize what you've done?"

"Of course not. It's not like I've watched Adam since before he even appeared on the League's radar. Or built a comprehensive psychological profile. Or-"

"Alright, I get it. But how is this going to end well?"

"I had Adam swallow a tracker. Right now I have the location of the Court's base. And if Adam holds his temper in check long enough to infiltrate their ranks, we can root out the whole nest."

"And if they make him one of theirs?" Batman smiled at the idea. Adam didn't take orders. If Superman couldn't make him say uncle, a mere cabal of wealthy humans didn't stand a chance.

Adam decided to lay down on one of the coffins after he slid the cover back onto it. He was bored. He wanted to do something interesting. He considered using the knife to scratch graffiti into the walls, but that just didn't get him going. If he could use a little magic-. That sent his thoughts grinding to a halt. Had he really become so dependent on it? Thankfully he didn't have to dwell on that thought long. One of the few remaining Talons dropped from the cavern ceiling with his knives in hand. Luckily Adam was facing up so he saw it coming. But he didn't react until it was close, normal people wouldn't be able to see something that blended so perfectly against the dark background. The attacker was dressed in a blend of ninja and owl motifs. The mask clearly looked like an owl head but much of the dark brown leather was arranged in a tactical, rather than aesthetic fashion. Dozens of knives, large and small, were strapped onto the assassin's body. The amber lenses of his goggles flashed like the eyes of a predatory bird.

Adam smiled then frowned. His eyes narrowed as he caught the scent of his opponent. Anger made his eyes flare yellow. A deep growl started building in his chest. Then he caught himself and pulled the knife from his pocket. The enemy came on, not speaking a word. Adam moved fast for a human, but quite slowly from his own perspective. Even a dead human couldn't be expected to compete at superhuman levels, he thought. He waited for an opening and plunged the knife into the back of the Talon's neck, right between the base of the skull and the first vertebra. With a twist of his wrist he severed the spinal cord and dislocated it's skull. The assassin crumpled to the floor.

"For the record, it's no fun killing the dead. If you want to see my skills you'll have to work for it." far away in their nest the Court of Owls suffered mixed reactions. Adam had taken the blade with him so the Talon would regenerate and be back in fighting shape shortly. But he had dropped the Talon so easily. Then he taunted them. Admittedly that Talon was one of their least skilled, but even the worst Talon was a superb fighter. The death-match had lasted scarcely 15 seconds. A pitiful showing for the Talon. It left Adam feeling cheapened.

Not because the fight was unsatisfying, but because he had been fighting an animated corpse. There was no true person there, just the body, preserved after death and made to dance a macabre waltz. When he found these Owls they would know what it meant to mistake a wolf for a rabbit.

"Well, shall we test him further?" the woman who had supported Adam asked.

"Yes. This one is obviously skilled. Let's see if he can compete with our best." gasps ran around the room. Their greatest weapon, the Talon for whom they had developed the preservation and resurrection process. The Grandmaster of Talons. They hadn't used him for a very long time, not for a century.

"He won't survive. It simply isn't possible." One of the older members commented. "We would waste a good candidate to repay a slight. I won't agree with this." There were a few nods but most glared. A vote was taken and almost two thirds voted to move the Grandmaster onto the board. Despite the earlier misgivings by many, all eyes would be on this fight. No one in the current Court had ever seen the Grandmaster fight. It was the chance of a lifetime. The coffin holding the Grandmaster was in the part of the Labyrinth directly beneath their nest. They proceeded down the stairs leading into the maze in single file, the highest ranked were at the head of the line. Thirty members, the vast majority of the Court left in Gotham City, walked down into the darkness. Down and down they went, hundreds of feet lower in the earth than Shift. In a small tomb adorned with a multitude if weapons was a coffin made of solid gold. The first impression of many Owls was that it looked too small. Less than six feet long and narrow. The man inside couldn't have been more than 5 foot 7 at the tallest. The lid of the coffin was heavy, it took four owls to push it clear. The Court began the elaborate ritual of awakening a Talon. They connected the body to a machine that would restart it's nervous system and began arming and armoring the Grandmaster. Four words spilled from the body's lips as soon as the machine had been connected.

"Where is my enemy?"

#

Shift was going a little crazy. After re-deading one of the Court's assassins he had stumbled around for several more hours. In reality he was sweeping the maze in a fairly effective manner. Though it was miles long he had explored about 45% of it in under two days. Which wouldn't have made him feel better even if he knew that. He wanted out and he wanted about 15 hamburgers. Real ones not the fast food kind. Fresh hardroll buns, lean beef, onion slices sauteed in butter, fresh sliced pickles...

Shift's stomach growled loud enough to echo in the stone corridor and he punched a wall in frustration. "You nihilistic cowards! If I don't find something to eat soon, I'm going to eat one of you!" his stomach growled again and he moaned in discomfort. If he still had his magic he could conjure food. He punched the wall again and started walking, practically stomping.

"We were betrayed by one of our own. He poisoned many, stole much of our wealth and revealed our secrets to an enemy." The oldest of the Court said to the Grandmaster. His lean, tattooed face didn't so much as twitch when he was being brought up to speed. The visage of an owl had been meticulously inked into his face. His eyes were a natural amber and loomed large in his head, making the illusion complete. The ancient Talon had fitted a truly impressive number of weapons on his person. Everything from concealed knives to a battleaxe. Yet the manner in which they were arranged hid a great number of them and allowed him to move without the weapons making noise. When he looked at the Court they felt distinctly uncomfortable.

"Where is my enemy?" he repeated for the second time.

"We want you to test someone. See if they're worthy to be a Talon, just as you did so long ago." The man who wanted Shift to fail said. His voice died when the Grandmaster looked at him. "H-he's in the Labyrinth above us." The Court parted for their supreme warrior. He ascended the stairs quickly and silently, moving into the darkness. He was different. They all knew it, but they didn't know how or why. And not a single one of them was brave or foolish enough to ask. Once they were confidant the Grandmaster was gone they rushed back to the nest, eager to witness the pinnacle of their military might.

The Grandmaster stalked through the dark maze, he moved more quickly than a normal human being, the fruits of his acquired martial prowess and the regenerative compound saturating every cell of his ancient body. He moved at first inside the maze then he ran up the wall and started running on top of the thick stone walls. He moved in a straight line toward the lycanthrope, a sixth sense guiding him to the only other person in the huge cave. He could feel the bloodlust, the overwhelming desire for violence. His conscious mind had crumbled little by little over the centuries leaving behind pure instinct and the powerful drive that had carried him through an exceptionally harsh life.

He didn't know the layout to this new maze, but it didn't matter once he was running on top of it. He leaped over the gaps at a dead sprint, approaching Adam at a high speed. Unlike the other Talon this one had no use for elaborate trickery like a glider. Once he closed enough for armed combat it was already too late for his victim.

Adam was just getting ready to sit down for a rest against the wall when a sharp pain sank into his side. Instinctively he bolted to his right. It was a good thing he had because a second later a heavy battleaxe gouged the stone where he had been standing. Adam put a hand to his side and felt the thin metal handle of a throwing knife. It wasn't a serious wound. Throwing knives rarely inflicted serious injuries. But they were extremely distracting, the assassin had likely expected Adam to stop and inspect the sudden stab wound. Adam yanked the blade out and pulled his other knife. He hadn't heard a thing until the knife hit him. From that alone he knew this Talon was better than the last. A lot better. Adam felt the gash in his left side start to seal over under his shirt. While Adam was happy to have something to ease his boredom, he knew that this guy was not someone to take lightly. He watched the man drop his axe and bring out a tactical sword a bit longer than a machette. Adam tightened his legs to spring forward. Then he managed to look in the Talon's eyes. His heart skipped a beat. For a moment he forgot how to breathe. When he made eye contact these days he gleaned some piece of knowledge about that person. Just a few moments of their life, usually inconsequential. Adam had seen a field full of corpses. Several dozen corpses. Adam had gotten three random seconds of this guy's life and he sees a mass murder. The odds on that were frightening to say the least.

His hesitation was very nearly fatal. The razor point of the sword sank two inches into his shoulder. He jerked to one side which made the wound bigger but kept him from being impaled. No sooner had he dodged that strike when another knife hit him square in the chest. But it wasn't distracting enough to make him take his eyes off his enemy. Adam tossed both of his knives at the swordsman, not bothering with a proper knife throw. The next sword thrust came in high at his head. Adam dodged but the sword still split his cheek. He caught the knives in midair and drove them straight at the Grandmaster's eyes. It was a good strategy. If wasn't being arrogant and used a superhuman level of speed it might have actually worked. Instead the Grandmaster caught his wrists and kicked him in the throat. To his credit Adam pushed forward stubbornly, using an inhuman amount of strength to force his opponent against a wall. The Talon changed tactics. He knocked the knives out to the sides and drove his head into Adam's nose. It broke with a sickening crunch. Adam was accustomed to an extreme level of pain but when a person's nose is broken their eyes tear up and it compromises their vision. So he didn't see it when the Talon drove two more knives into Adam's wrists. But he felt it. Off balance, his concentration broken, he wasn't able to stop his opponent from bulling him back against the opposite wall and pinning his wrists to the stone. Before he could recover the sword went through his stomach and deep into the wall. It was a mortal wound. That was when Adam decided that they really just meant to kill him. He was done acting.

The Grandmaster was no longer attacking because he'd immobilized his opponent and severed his abdominal aorta. The candidate would bleed out shortly. His work was done, now it was time to return to sleep.

The Court was silent. None of them had ever seen such a furious fight. It hadn't lasted long, not even a full minute. But it had been breathtaking. Even the most skeptical of them now knew that Adam would have made a good Talon. If he'd lived. Something was wrong with their Grandmaster. He'd disobeyed an order. Once he was safely back in his tomb they would leave him there, probably for good.

Adam let go of his restraint. He let the pain and anger move him into the change. His muscles swelled and twisted, his bones melting and reforming like wax. He pulled free of the knives and drew the sword back out of his gut and snapped it in half. The dagger in his chest had fallen out as the growing bone pushed it out of his body. In six seconds a bipedal werewolf loomed over the Grandmaster. A snarl drew the monster's lips back from it's long muzzle. The beast was covered in black and gray fur and it's bright gold eyes were fixed on the Talon. Shock registered in the Grandmaster's mind for the first time since his death. If he was shocked, the Owls were stunned. They hadn't even known werewolves were real. Now there was one in their Labyrinth. But none of them could stop watching. The show wasn't over yet.

Adam felt powerful, felt whole for the first time in months. Keeping himself from turning on the full moon had caused him no small amount of physical and psychological stress. But now that was over. The whole ruse was over and he could let loose. The Grandmaster drew another sword and tried to slice at the werewolf's gut. It would be difficult for it to fight if it was busy holding it's entrails. Shift saw the attack. It was no longer so blindingly fast that he couldn't respond. His senses had been cranked up to 11 along with his reflexes. Even in the near darkness he could see clearly. He backed off a step then came back in, closing the distance between him and his opponent. The sword was still completing it's previous slash allowing Shift to hit the Talon with a thunderous backhand. The Grandmaster was able to interpose an arm and divert the force of the blow. He'd expected the extra mass to slow the werewolf down. Physics dictated that it should be so. But Adam, once known as Shift, was no longer playing by those rules. He was faster, stronger, more agile, and healed faster than when he was in human form.

The Talon hit the wall and rolled aside before Adam's follow-up punch could connect. Stone cracked and broke under the weight of the blow. But the Grandmaster didn't stop to gawk, he put another knife into Adam's left side as he came up from his roll. Shift didn't even bother taking it out, his increased regeneration would take care of that. Instead he lashed out with his left foot and clipped the man's shoulder. It wasn't a solid connection but if sent him to the ground. He was back up and holding two halves of a spear before Adam could capitalize on his advantage. He twisted the pieces together and used the point to discourage the hulking beast from trying to close the distance between them. Adam moved ahead, headless of the spear point aimed at his head. The Talon thrust, aiming for Adam's eye, hoping to go through the socket and into Adam's brain. Adam jerked his head aside and clamped his muzzle down on the shaft of the spear. He bit down hard, splintering the wood and removing the metal blade from the weapon. Instead of retreating, the old Talon jabbed the splintered end of the broken weapon into Adam's eye. He didn't have enough of a point to drive it into the lycanthrope's skull, but the sharp end hit Adam squarely in the eye. He let out a yelp and backed off. Two more throwing knives hit him the legs, just above the knees. Adam had to fight to stay standing. His eye healed at a remarkable speed and his legs grew stronger every second the Talon delayed his next attack.

The Court members were whispering to each other, not taking their eyes off a single moment of this death-match. "Do you think we can recruit him?" one asked.

"Perhaps, if we can find something he wants."

"I'm not sure it would be wise to recruit him. He is powerful but he has no concept of stealth or restraint. Look at how he takes those hits. This one is a blunt instrument not suitable for assassination." That provokes a longer discussion on what the Court needed in these dire times. With Batman on their heels and a rogue Talon destroying assets at every available opportunity, much of their tradition no longer seemed valid. But all eyes remained on the werewolf and weapons master as they did battle.

Adam could see again and the knife wounds had fully healed. The Talon stood back a ways and observed. His instinct driven brain was having difficulty finding a good way to kill this enemy. There were no legends of werewolves in his memory, he had no way of knowing that silver was his only possible option. But in fact he did have one weapon with silver in it. And as luck would have it it was the next weapon he drew. The Talon brought out a slender rapier, hoping his speed would be enough for him to keep out of harm's way and let him inflict damage at the same time. His bladework was fluid and quick. Even Adam's enhanced senses had a hard time keeping track of the fine blade. The small cuts it inflicted were minor at best, but the silver on the edges made the cuts burn and kept the wounds from healing as fast as they normally would. The cuts bled freely, his body trying to purge the small amounts of silver the blade left in the wounds. Adam suffered dozens of small gashes across his arms, hands and chest in the first minute. He hadn't managed to land a single claw on the fighter. If this kept on the blood loss would pile up faster than his ability to heal could replace it. It was time for a more reckless gambit. He feinted to the right and drove his left palm straight at the swordsman. He responded by stabbing straight into the hand and through it into the limb. Adam pushed forward, ignoring the pain. His hand closed around the rapier's basket hilt and he jerked the deadly weapon away from his enemy. He got a dirk slipped into his ribs for his trouble, but it wasn't edged with silver so the wound wasn't overly serious. Adam extracted the sword from his arm and stomped on the flat of the blade, snapping it off a few inches from the hilt. From there it all went downhill for the Talon. He used weapon after weapon, dealing damage to his enemy but never managing to do serious harm. Adam broke the steel and wood, making the man use up his reserve of blades. Then, when it was clear he no longer had the means to effectively fight Adam ended him. He moved in one swift stride, almost faster than the human eye could see and his swipe took the man's head from his shoulders. Had he been a living human Adam would have simply knocked him out. But he wasn't. He was a doll made of flesh and bone, a puppet for the Court of Owls. But still Adam felt some remorse for the action. He wondered who the man had been in life, how he had learned to fight like he had. He didn't think Batman could have taken the Talon in a straight fight. But then again since when did Batman do straight fights?

Adam shook the thoughts from his head and refocused. The Court was his target. He needed to capture as many as possible before they got away. And he would have moved even faster if he knew about the Court's frantic escape from their nest. The elevator that had brought them down only fit five people at a time. They had started evacuating as soon as Adam had finished the fight. They knew something with a canine sense of smell would probably be able to track the Grandmaster Talon back to the nest. They had decided against his recruitment on the grounds that he terrified them. Adam moved fast, following the scent trail at better than 60mph. As he got there the last of the Court had just gotten into the elevator and started their ascent to the surface. Adam, knowing he had just missed them smashed the elevator door and started crawling up the inside of the tunnel. His progress was much slower than the high speed elevator. He kept tearing his claws into the metal sides and hauling himself higher and higher. When he got to the top he had to tear through the bottom of the elevator and break down another set of doors. He found himself standing in a warehouse filled with crates. The Court members had climbed into cars and driven off the moment they got out of the elevator. No sense taking chances. But the last group to come up was still climbing into their vehicles and Adam heard the sound of car doors slamming. The last car was just starting to pull away when he made it outside. The driver didn't see him coming and was surprised when his roof caved in. Before the man could react his roof was peeled open and he was hauled out by his shoulders. Adam promptly knocked him out and appropriated his cell phone. He reversed the transformation and stole the unconscious man's pants. His clothes had been shredded when he changed and he didn't want to stand butt naked outside any longer than he had to. He called the number Batman had made him memorize when the whole fiasco had started.

"Adam? Where are you? Your tracker went dead ten minutes ago."

"Yeah, I'm fine by the way. I assume you can track this phone. I have no idea where I am. Some warehouse outside Gotham. I've got one of the Court members here. The rest ran before I could get to them." he heard Batman sigh in frustration on the other end of the phone.

"I'll be there soon. Just don't kill the one you have." Adam didn't take offense at the implication. He was a werewolf. Werewolves typically ate people, and he'd be lying is he said it wasn't a tempting thought just then.

"Yeah yeah. Just hurry up. And bring some meat. I'm practically starving to death here." He hung up and kept an eye on his prisoner. Half an hour later Batman showed up, a new Robin in tow and took the owl with him. He also had two bags of beef jerky and tossed them to Adam. The werewold tore the bags open and shredded the tough meat. Batman waited patiently for Adam to finish, but the new Robin gave him a disgusted look.

"Why are you working with this animal?" Robin asked Batman. Adam stopped eating and gave Robin an angry look. Robin returned the look. "Look at him, stuffing food into his mouth with no civility. Disgusting." Adam stood up and started to transform again. Batman stepped between the two.

"Damian, apologize."

"Why should I? I was speaking truthfully." Adam's eyes were all gold and his skin itched with fur just starting to sprout from it.

"Apologize." Batman insisted. Damian frowned but did so. Adam wasn't the least bit satisfied, but he managed to bring himself back under control.

"I'm going to need a ride back to my apartment." Adam said. Damian look displeased at the idea of sharing space with an animal and their prisoner. But Batman agreed.

It was a tense drive back. "So, where do we go from here? Do you need me to stick around? If not I'm going to call in sick for the next few days and take a trip out to Jump City."

"That's fine. You've done your part. But I recommend you do what you can to keep your job. I might need you again." Adam nodded and stretched out on the back seat. The prisoner had woken up but was tied and gagged. Adam was laying partially on the captive, his feet in the man's face. He wasn't above being petty as a form of revenge. When they got to Adam's apartment the werewolf jumped out and began climbing up the side of the building. The Court hadn't stuck around to return his wallet so he decided to break in. He opened his window from the outside and climbed in. His apartment was just like he left it. Thankfully he had left his police badge here so he wouldn't have to explain that. But he would need a new drivers license. He didn't have credit cards, he was wealthy enough that he didn't need them. He wasn't Batman wealthy or Green Arrow wealthy, but he didn't really need an income. The police thing had been a cover for this favor for Batman. But it was good work. Frustrating, but good work. He'd keep the job, or maybe become a paid consultant. Either way he was going to be sticking around Gotham for a while. Jump City was 40 miles south and Metropolis was 90 miles north. It wasn't a bad location. He changed into his own clothes and dropped face first into his bed. Sleep found him almost immediately. Then his landline rang and he cursed it for the first two rings. Who called people at 4am?

"Officer Kriticos!" a masculine voice shouted through the phone. He recognized it as Gordon's voice. His boss was calling him to yell at him in the middle of the night. "Where have you been for the past two days!?"

"Being held prisoner in an underground maze designed to torture people."

"That's not funny."

"Darn right it wasn't. Neither were the two guys who tried to kill me." it occurred to Gordon that Adam wasn't just giving him lip. He was being serious.

"Who are you talking about?"

"The Court of Owls. You remember them, right? Tried to kill you and your whole family. Wealthy, secretive. They tried to kill me and I escaped. I just got back a few minutes ago and kind of fell asleep. I know I should have called first to let you know I'm not dead. But certain needs rank higher than others." Adam said it all in a very matter-of-fact voice. It was so calm and level that Gordon half-believed the younger man was lying.

"Do you need me to call you an ambulance?"

"No. My body regenerates quickly but I do need some food and sleep. Preferably a lot of it."

"Will you be coming in to take the detective exam tomorrow?" Adam thought for a moment.

"Sure, why not. But I will be using some leave days after tomorrow." Gordon put a hand to his head. Officers needed to request off from work well in advance. This was more like Adam telling him to let him not work. But if he had just run into the Court of Owls his leave could be well justified.

"Fine. Just promise you'll brief me on what happened after the test."

"No problem boss." Adam hung up the phone. Boss is what he called people that he didn't like who had authority over him. He did as he said he would. He took the test, went right to Gordon's office to be debriefed. But as he walked in he caught a scent, one he had logged away for future reference. One of the scent signatures he had gotten in the nest. Standing with Gordon was an old woman leaning heavily on a cane. She had a silk shawl draped over her shoulders and was decked out in white clothing. Adam forced himself not to react to the presence of the woman. He felt an instinctual urge to annihilate this enemy. But now was not the time.

"You wanted to see me sir?" Adam said, the false cheer in his voice evident to everyone in the room. Gordon gave him a stern look.

"Yes. Adam, this is Mrs. Cecile Moreau. She's one of the most generous supporters of the Gotham City Police Orphans and Widows fund." Adam smiled at her and she offered her hand. He shook it, fighting not to rip the old woman's arm out of its socket. She was part of the Court. He knew it beyond a shadow of a doubt. And she obviously knew who he was. Why else would she be here. "Mrs Moreau, this is Adam Kriticos, one of our youngest officers."

"It's a pleasure to meet you Adam." she said pleasantly. He kept that smile on his face and returned the pleasantry. He didn't realize but his eyes were sparking with flecks of gold, Moreau didn't miss it. "Every year or two I try to steal a few young officers from James to provide private security for the rich and famous of Gotham. I was wondering if you might be interested?"

"I'm flattered, but I don't think I would fit well with your mission statement." Adam said. Moreau got the context. But she pressed, hoping she could convince him.

"We pay very well. And you operate with a significant degree of freedom. Most of our recruits find themselves enjoying the job even more than police work." Gordon shifted around uncomfortably. This clearly wasn't something he liked doing.

"I'm sorry, but I've made a commitment. I won't be taking another job anytime soon. And I've always had certain ethical problems with the idea of people hiring private security. To be honest, I'd feel a little like a prostitute." Gordon sucked in a breath. It wasn't an insult exactly. But it was certainly rude.

"I understand. I wish you a long and healthy career, police work can be so dangerous. I heard a rumor that some gangs are coating bullets in silver to make them effective against body armor." Adam showed a little more teeth, teeth that were suddenly a little too long and sharp.

Threat registered. Fight or flight response engaged. Moreau's face went white. She could feel how much Adam wanted to tear her apart. The same reaction any normal person felt when confronted with a wild animal. "Well, thank you for stopping by Mrs. Moreau. I hope to see you again soon." Gordon spoke to diffuse the situation.

"Yes, soon." Adam said. His fangs had become apparent while he was smiling. Gordon called in another office to escort the old woman to the door.

"Put those away." Gordon grumbled. Adam pressed his lips closed to hide his fangs. "Now would you slowly and calmly tell me what the hell is going on?"

"Sure boss." He ran through the events of the last few days, leaving out a few key details. Like his capture of a member of the Court. And Batman's involvement. And that he peed on a coffin. "And when I got there they had all managed to flee the scene. But I was able to pick their scent signatures so I'll know if I smell them again."

"You can do that?" Adam nodded then added a qualification.

"The scent a person gives off can change over time based on what they eat, where they live, if something changes in regards to their body. But in the short run the best they can hope to do is cover it up with a strong scent."

"And her comment about silver bullets?"

"Yeah, the Court wanted to recruit me. I told them I'm not their pet and they responded by letting me know they no how to kill me."

"This has gotten too far out of hand. You're riding a desk until further notice." Adam groaned. Boredom was his kryptonite. Filling out paperwork for 8 hours a day was pure torture.

"So then I'm not getting my leave time this week?" Gordon looked at him in irritation. Then he started smiling slightly.

"Actually, I think that's a very good idea. I'm putting you on indefinite leave starting today. I suggest you go on a vacation."

"Sure thing boss."


	3. Chapter 3

Gotham PD Chapter 3

Adam's vacation hadn't gotten off to a good start. He hadn't been out of the station more than 5 minutes before some punk had pulled a gun and tried to put a bullet in his chest. The would-be assassin was only a little more than a kid, 18 years old. The gun was a piece of junk revolver but it had been loaded with silver bullets. From there Adam decided to go back to his apartment by hopping across rooftops. He felt it made sense that he would encounter less street thugs if he didn't use the street.

He reached into his pocket at the sound of the Foo Fighters singing about being a pretender. Batman thought he was being crass but Adam thought it was funny. Waving a hint in someone's face and watching them fail to get it was amusing to him, like a kid keeping secrets.

Adam twitched his legs and propelled himself 20 feet onto the rickety fire escape of an abandoned apartment building. He scrambled up the iron rails with a superhuman agility, keeping a wary eye on the streets below to make sure some thug wouldn't open fire on him while he was exposed on the side of the building. He was on his way to some much deserved R&amp;R and he would go nuclear on the person who messed that up.

But that R&amp;R was going to include facing up to going AWOL when he and Raven had just started...something. They hadn't gone to dinner or had a formal date, but something had happened after they had saved each others lives and/or souls. Adam, at the height of his power, had broken Trigon's hold over her and when Trigon had exacted his revenge Raven had used her powers to save Adam's life. She had, he found out later, put her soul into his body to help him survive the curse that had separated Adam from the Leviathan. That wasn't something one could do without consequence, meddle with souls. Adam hadn't been able to perform any divination spells since that fateful day so he couldn't confirm exactly what had happened, but there were other ways to examine one's soul. Through that examination he had discovered his mind had a tendency to always drift back to Raven. He found himself thinking of her at the oddest moments and wondering how she was, what she was doing, if she was thinking of him.

His unfocused mind snapped back to perfect clarity when a silver-plated knife sank to the hilt in his shoulder. He had just pulled himself over the edge of a building and the impact coupled with the pain dropped him back over the edge. His mind went hazy when he hit the crumbling fire escape and he barely felt the impact when he hit the cheap asphalt in an alleyway full of loose trash. He rolled over onto his stomach and tried to push himself back to his feet, despite the fact that the world seemed to be tossing wildly beneath him. Under normal circumstances he could shake off a concussion in seconds, but with the silver knife in his shoulder his regeneration was almost non-existent. He cursed under his breath when he heard the soft impact of leather boots less than 20 feet away.

"Adam Kriticos. The Court of Owls has sentenced you to die." The Talon had a knife in each hand, probably with the same silver plating as the one already poisoning Adam. But even through the sudden high fever and the concussion didn't stop Adam from noticing one very odd fact about what was happening.

"You can talk!?" He had assumed the Talons were just reanimated corpses with no real minds or personalities. But talking put that theory 6 feet under. Were these Talons people? Had he killed people and not even realized it? The gleam of light off the deadly silver blades in the trained assassin's hands brought Adam back to the more pressing issue of his impending death. Something dark and human-shaped hit the Talon from the air and bought him a little time.

With his senses dulled the fight between the two seemed impossibly fast. Punches, kicks, attacks with edged weapons, it all seemed like one big blur of movement interspersed with grunts of pain. He yanked the knife out of his shoulder and winced, both at the pain and the gush of black blood from the wound. The silver had caused the blood in contact with it die and start decomposing. The world instantly became clear and he felt less like a Malaria patient. The wound knitted itself shut, still slower than normal but getting faster. He felt the almost painful itching sensation preceding the Change and clamped down on it. If he was really fighting a human he couldn't afford to bring out the fangs and claws. Oh, they worked wonders for chasing down and scaring people, but it was far too easy to kill with them in real combat. The person in black went down with a couple of non-lethal stab wounds and Adam stepped in to keep the Talon from making a decisive kill. He picked up a slab of the street and hurled it like a discus at the masked killer. It hit with a very satisfying thud and Adam heard ribs breaking. The assassin was down but definitely not out. Adam stepped forward to levy a decisive blow.

"Adam?" the sound of his name made him take a closer look at his rescuer. The red hair gave her away instantly, even though she couldn't have possibly been there. It was Batgirl, Barbara Gordon. The last time he'd seen her she had been paralyzed from the waist down and stuck in a wheel chair. She was one of the greatest computer hackers and intelligence analysts in the world, Adam had taken directives from her on occasion.

"Oracle?" Adam asked, using the codename she had given him after their first meeting. "How the-?"

"Look out!" the redhead shouted. Adam reacted with predatory reflex and jumped fifteen feet into the air and sank his claws into the brick of the building. A silver knife clipped his ankle as he went airborn and another nearly sliced into his neck but buried itself in the brick next to him. The Talon raised his arm to throw another knife when a piece of black steel pierced his wrist and the silver knife fell out of his hand. The batarang had severed the tendon near the wrist and given Adam the opening he needed. He moved faster than humanly possible and kicked at the side of the Talon's knee. The joint shattered like cheap glass and Adam's foot made similar work of the other knee. He caught the Talon by the arms before it fell to the ground and yanked hard, dislocating both shoulders. These were all non-lethal injuries but excruciatingly painful and debilitating. Normally he wouldn't have been so brutal with a human but the assassin's ability to ignore injury and rapidly heal had made such measures necessary. He left the man where he fell and went to check on Batgirl.

"Well, thanks for saving my life. But how in the blue hell are you here?" he asked after seeing that her injuries were not life threatening. None had hit a joint or major artery but there was a deep wound in her leg that kept her from standing.

"Long story. How come you needed me to save your life?" Adam looked nervously around, wondering if the Court had sent more Talons. He couldn't smell any just then but that only meant they might know enough not to stand down wind.

"Let's continue this back at my apartment. It's safer and I might just have something to take care of those stab wounds." He called Batman, who promised to pick up the broken but still very alive Talon, and carried Batgirl back to his home in Gotham. He set her down as gently as possible but he still felt her tense with pain when he shifted her leg. "Sorry. I'm not used to working with people so delicate." Then, as an afterthought, he added, "No offense." Barbara Gordon didn't exactly like being called delicate, but considering she was in the home of a monster who could survive being shot, stabbed, blown up, and set on fire, she was willing to cut him some slack.

"It's alright. Do you have a first aid kit or something? Delicate little me needs a band-aid for her boo boos." Adam didn't respond the the verbal jab but got up, walked to his bedroom and closed the door. The smell of her blood was agitating him, human blood smelled better than a pot roast to a werewolf and Adam was hungry after being stabbed with silver. He wasn't in danger of taking a bite out of her but it did put him on edge. He stripped out of his blood-stained clothes and put on a fresh shirt and GCPD sweat pants. He shoved aside a false wall in his closet where he kept the few mystic items he had managed to acquire since his fall from power. He grabbed a small brown jar of unguent and replaced the false wall.

"I can do a bit better than a band-aid." He said when he set the small jar on the table in front of his sofa. "This will accelerate the healing process and prevent infection so rub it over the wounds and wrap bandages around them." Adam opened up a cabinet and extracted a large, somewhat fluffy black robe. "I don't have any real clothes in your size." He apologized. She took the offered robe and he walked back into his bedroom to give her some privacy and started shoving clothes into a large hiking backpack. He swore under his breath, knowing that he was probably going to be throwing that couch away when he got back. Batgirl's stab wounds were still bleeding and seeping into the cushions. Adam caught himself licking his lips and shook himself. He was acutely aware of his empty stomach and the enticing smell of blood slowly spreading through his apartment. He couldn't remember the last time his curse had gnawed at him so intensely. Of course, the full moon was only two days away and it was always worse close to the full moon.

"I thought you could just magic up and make whatever you wanted. Clothes, bandages, whatever." Batgirl said loud enough for him to hear through his door.

"That was then, this is now." Adam said bitterly.

"You mean you can't do magic?"

"Fresh out. It's a long story. I was never much good at healing spells anyway. It's why I never offered to do something about your spine. If I had tried it would have been painful beyond your worst experiences and might have left you worse off than when I started." Adam said, partly as an apology for not trying and partly and excuse for why. Adam had a mountain of regrets and not being able to use his magic to heal people sat very near the top of the heap. He had Oracle, Barbara Gordon, hadn't been friends but there was a certain professional respect between them. She was one of a handful of people still alive who knew exactly what he went through while Cadmus was experimenting on him. He'd come a long way from the damaged kid who wanted to track down and murder everyone responsible for what was done to him. But the nightmares still came once in a while. He still felt his pulse quicken and his breath go short whenever he saw a syringe or a scalpel.

"Sorry to hear that. How are you doing?"

"Fine. Been keeping busy. Got a new job working in the GCPD but your dad put me on indefinite leave after I pissed off the Court of Owls."

"I heard about that. You're just lucky I happened to be on patrol tonight." He heard her hiss in agony when she applied the salve to her deepest stab wound. "We've been putting as many Talons on ice as we can but we don't know how many more they have."

"What are they, the Talons?"

"The Court recruits talented people and molds them into assassins. Then they prepare their bodies with electrum and some kind of healing compound and kill them. Then they can revive them and use them like living weapons."

"The one we took down back in that alley, it talked to me. Are these Talons alive? Are they still human?"

"I don't know. I met one, Mary. She's as human as I am, just gets over injuries faster than I do. But a lot of them..." she hesitated, trying to pick her words carefully because she knew Adam would take her at her word. "They don't seem to be human, just walking bodies with a few preset commands. One piece of advice though, don't go easy on them."

"Heathen bastards." Adam cursed. The idea of what a Talon actually was repulsed him on a fundamental level. When he said heathen he wasn't commenting on the fact that they weren't Christian, though that was a logical consequence of what he meant. He despised people who ignored that natural law, that living things should die, that souls should move on, and that the young should take up the responsibilities of the old. It was the nature of life as a human being and something that shouldn't be deviated from. Ironic for someone who could regenerate from most injuries and was physically several years younger than he should have been due to his shape-shifting abilities. But he believed it and he came down like the Hammer of God on things that flouted that natural order. Vandal Savage and Ra's Al Ghul had learned that lesson the hard way.

"That's one way to describe the Court, I guess. You can come back in." Adam went back into the living room and sat down in the comfortable chair off to the left of the couch. Barbara was wearing the robe and she had set her Batgirl costume on the table. Her mane of red hair hung limp with sweat and her face was a little pale from the blood loss but Adam couldn't deny that she was a beautiful woman. But Adam was spoken for, he firmly reminded himself. Besides, Barbara wasn't really part of the world he lived in. Yes she was a hero, trained by Batman, but she lived in the world of criminals committing crimes, not monsters and moldy old gods.

"Here." Adam tossed a set of keys at her and she snapped them out of the air with one deceptively strong hand. "You can stay as long as you want. I'm leaving town after dinner. Just make sure to lock up after you leave." He did it without thinking about what kind of message he was sending. His apartment was really just a place for him to sleep and eat, it wasn't really home. But he had, in fact, given the keys to his apartment to a young woman wearing nothing but his bath robe after calmly stating he would cook a dinner for the two of them. But since he didn't realize what he'd just done, Adam got up and went to his refrigerator without noticing how the color seemed to return to Barbara's face for a few moments. Adam pulled a huge roast out of his fridge and started heating up the oven. Then he pulled out half a dozen potatoes, a frying pan, some olive oil, and an unmarked bag of spices.

"So where are you heading?" Barbara asked after she felt her face cool down.

"Jump City. There's someone there who might be able to help restore my magic. If I get it back I'll come back to Gotham. But if I can't then I won't be coming back for a while. Too many silver knives and bullets floating around for my taste." He cubed the potatoes, rolled them in spice, and dropped them in the pan of oil.

"So silver really does work on werewolves? I thought that was just in the movies."

"Movies based on folklore as old as the Assyrian Empire. Silver impedes my ability to heal, takes away any my enhanced senses, and makes me feel like the victim of some kind of fever."

"Anything else that can hurt you?"

"Plenty if you know where to look. There's a few herbs that can knock me out, irridium is like freaking Kryptonite to me but nearly as rare, and a powerful enough curse can overwhelm my lycanthopy. But you'd have to run in some of the same circles I do to know these things."

"And you're OK with telling me this stuff? It's not like Superman went around telling people that Kryptonite could hurt him."

"I trust you. Well, as much as I can trust anyone. How are you feeling now?" Adam asked after shoving the roast into the oven.

"Better. What was that stuff?"

"An unguent I got in trade from a _houngan_ in Louisiana. I might not be able to do any magic myself but I've always been able to turn a profit in that market. But as for what the ingredients are I don't have the faintest idea and no desire to find out." He stirred the potatoes and got out a couple of plates and some silverware.

"After I was shot I sounded a lot like you. Keeping busy, moving on with things. But I distanced myself from people, even my family. Being alone isn't a good thing." Barbara held up a hand when it looked like Adam was about to say something sharp and angry. "I know, I know. You see people every day at work. That's not what I mean. You don't have any personal relationships. You don't have anyone in your life who really knows you." Adam opened his mouth then clamped it shut again before he could say something he would regret. Besides, he knew she was right.

"I'm a former sorcerer and a werewolf with PTSD. People who have any sense wouldn't get within two miles of me if they knew."

"So I don't have any sense?"

"You fight crime in a bat costume." he said with a wry smile.

"Touche'."

"This Mary, what happened to her?"

"She's working with the Birds of Prey under the name Strix. She's really a nice girl, shame what happened to her."

"It happens." Adam replied bitterly. "The roast will take a while to heat up but the potatoes are ready if you can stomach some food." As if to answer the question, Barbara's stomach growled. Adam went to the couch and helped her limp to the table before dumping chunks of potato onto her plate. The smell of garlic and pepper made her mouth water and she picked up a fork. She stopped when Adam clasped his hands together and started praying. "...and these Thy gifts which we are about to receive..." Barbara waited for him to finish before she started eating as a sign of respect for her host's beliefs. "Amen.' Adam crossed himself and picked up his own fork. He shoveled food into his mouth like a man who'd been living on water for days, heedless of his guest or proper decorum. He felt the ache in his jaw and the itching sensation intensify as he consumed food that wasn't meat. The huge roast on the oven would take care of that but he needed the carbs from the potatoes too. Magic could do a lot but that didn't mean he could simply ignore the rules of the physical world altogether. But he had no such limitation when it came to ignoring social etiquette. He had cleared his plate in less than 30 seconds, during which time Barbara just sat and watched with a disturbed fascination.

Adam caught her staring. "Sorry, I'm not always the most civilized after being wounded." he apologized.

"Well at least you're not running around eating people." she joked. When Adam didn't laugh they lapsed into an awkward silence which wasn't broken until the oven timer dinged nearly ten minutes later. Adam took the roast out of the oven and sliced off a few steaks. He piled three on his plate and gave one to Barbara. This time he made sure to eat in a polite fashion but Barbara watched in amazement as a pound and a half of meat disappeared from Adam's plate piece by piece. She ate while she watched but it was unnerving watching someone as skinny as Adam destroy such a large pile of food. He jaw almost dropped when he went back and piled the rest of the roast onto his plate.

"Did you want more of anything?"

"No, I've had plenty." the redhead said quickly. Adam nodded, finished his food, and slid a card across the small kitchen table.

"Batman already has the number but if you ever run into something supernatural give me a call." He scooped up the dishes, rinsed them in the sink, picked up his bad and walked to the door. "Leave the keys with the Commissioner when you get a chance." He was about to leave when he remembered that he'd forgotten something important. "And you can keep what's left of the unguent. A small thank you for saving my life."

"What if there are other Talons out there?" Barbara asked, concerned by his surety in walking out of his door. In response Adam held up a kind of hat that she had never seen before.

"A replica of the Hades Cap. It only works for eight hours but during that time no one will notice me. Plenty of time to get to Jump City." He put on the cap, picked up his bag, and walked out the door. "Don't forget to lock up." A deep gray fog enveloped him and he vanished. No, that wasn't quite right. Barbara saw someone, but that person seemed so incredibly unimportant that she found it nigh impossible to to even think about them. Then the door shut and she was alone in someone else's apartment.

"I wonder what else he has stashed in this place."

#

The trip was dreadfully dull. Everyone Adam interacted with just waved him along like he was some bum they were used to seeing on the street. He boarded the train and he got off the train without event. He was taxied to a low rent motel and paid both the cabbie and motel owner without any real conversation. It was the most boring eight hours of his life. But since he was going to keep living afterwords he didn't mind it. Although he had a nasty shock when the eight hours were up and the funny looking hat caught fire. Adam slapped it off his head and stomped the flames out, spitting curses at the craftsman that had almost made him go bald.

"Very funny Zatana. Real mature of you." Adam tossed what was left of the hat into the trash bin. "Just wait 'til I get my powers back, then I'll show y-" the room shook lightly but enough to make Adam stop and take notice.

Then it shook again, more violently this time, and Adam pulled open the curtains. A giant robot made of cars and trucks was walking through the city. It was massive enough to tower above the buildings and shake the earth for half a mile when it took a step. If he hadn't noticed the giant robot before he definitely would have when a megaphone amplified voice started shouting. "I am Control Freak! Tremble before my new and improved Transformator!"

"I am on vacation." Adam complained to whatever being might be listening. He shut his blinds and turned his back on the window.

"Come, face me Teen Titans! Or I will destroy the city!" the wheezy but loud voice shouted.

"See, the Titans will take care of it. No need for me to do a thing." He sat on his bed and used the ancient TV remote to turn on the news.

"-villain Control Freak is rampaging through the city. The Teen Titans are nowhere to be found. If no one stops this criminal the city will-" Adam turned the TV back off.

"Really? I almost got taken out by a guy with a knife and you want me to go fight a building sized robot? If I didn't know any better I'd think someone up there wanted me dead." Adam puled off his sweats and cracked his door open. He had a hard time opening doors when he was in battle mode and he didn't feel like explaining a lot of property damage to the guy who ran the motel he had checked himself into. With his preparations complete he forced his body to reshape itself into something more suitable for fighting. He felt the familiar tight pain as his spine stretched and formed a tail. The heat of his organs becoming fluid, reforming, and reconnecting to his body. The deep ache of his skull and bones altering their shape spread from his sternum and head out to his extremities. When the pain subsided Adam was looking out on a whole new world of sensory experience. The darkness of the night and the brightness of the city lights were dulled to gray but the edges of all objects were sharpened to high definition and everything seemed to move more slowly. Normally Adam would be getting the most sensory feedback from his nose but he had intentionally severed that sensory link. He wouldn't need to smell anything while he was fighting. He had to use his jaws to pull his motel door shut but once that was done he took off running for the giant robot. Spiking adrenaline and endorphins aside, he was not happy to be using this shape. Unlike the beast-man transformation he used against the Talons in the underground maze, this form had no human characteristics. Calling this form a wolf was both appropriate and inappropriate. It had the same basic shape and looking at it from a distance a person might mistake it for a wolf. But this creature was much larger, at least four times the size of a North American timberwolf. The frame was heavier with muscle and the limbs were thicker. The muzzle was shorter and broader and the paws had an extra joint that allowed for movement like a cat's paws. It was a biological aberration designed for one thing, killing.

Despite his greatly increased mass Adam was faster and more agile than most cars. He closed the few short miles in two minutes flat and rammed the leading foot just before it touched the ground. The foot moved too far forward and the giant humanoid machine overbalanced. It tipped backward and crashed down onto its back. The collateral damage to the buildings was mostly cosmetic and a few parked cars were crushed but Adam breathed an internal sigh. Bringing down something that big almost always engenders collateral damage and often produces casualties. Adam didn't care about the former but the later he regarded as incredibly important. The beast that Adam Kriticos had turned himself into scrambled onto the giant metal body and started clawing and biting at the patchwork armor plating. A robot built from cars may look cool but it paid a heavy cost in terms of structural integrity. His supernaturally tough claws pulled bits and pieces free until Adam started getting at the true machinery, the hydraulic fluid lines and mechanical joints. The point where he intitially broke through was the left knee of the mecha and he burrowed down like some flesh-eating insect, cutting every line and pummeling every delicate mechanism. The magnified voice was yelling at him but Adam couldn't understand what it was saying. That was another problem with this form, sound produced by electronics didn't seem to translate back to the same sound it was supposed to be magnifying while he was transformed. He wasn't sure if it was something about the structure of his canid ears or some shift in the structure of his brain that caused this odd effect but he hoped it was the ears. Messing around with the biological container of one's own mind was asking for trouble.

Adam had cut off his sense of smell because of the tremendous distraction it would be. He learned this to be a horrible mistake when his world caught fire. If he had been able to smell he would have recognized the flammable liquid before he fully tore open the tube and doused himself in the equivalent of jet fuel. There was no lack of sparks inside the shattered joint to make the fuel catch fire. Adam leaped out of the hole he had dug out headless of the cuts jagged pieces of metal carved into his hide and rolled himself desperately on the pavement. Thankfully he couldn't smell his own fur burning but that was a cold comfort compared to the agony of the fires burning every inch of his exposed skin. Being burned alive couldn't kill him but the pain was enough to drive him mad.

The pain and lack of clean air knocked the shape-shifter out in less than a minute. Adam, despite his high tolerance for pain and ability to regenerate, was still human. He had his limits and being soaked in jet fuel then set on fire was enough to reach those limits. But machines had limits too. The severed fuel and hydraulic lines were causing many of the critical systems to fail and prevented the robot from getting back onto its feet. "No! This was supposed to be my day to triumph over my arch-nemeses." Control Freak yelled as he climbed out of his damaged creation. "But you had to wreck everything!" The fat man pulled a remote with a demonic looking face and clicked it at the undamaged cars. They revved their engines and their grates split apart into a set of jagged metal jaws. But Control Freak didn't immediately send them after Adam. The giant beast of a wolf lay unmoving in the middle of the road. The villain, not certain of the identity of this unexpected interruption, edged closer. "Huh. Looks like you wrecked yourself along with my precious Transformator. Serves you right." He kicked Adam in what passed for his kidney dragging a low growl from the monster. He jumped backwards with surprising agility for someone so overweight and his surprised yelp stirred Adam from his unconsciousness. "Ah, go! Get him!" Control Freak shouted.

The car monsters revved their engines and charged in to crush their master's enemy. Even though Adam was awake his mind hadn't managed to properly assert control over the unnatural body. The beast reacted on instinct and charged between the two automatons and straight for Control Freak. "No, stay away!" Jaws full of sharp teeth snapped off and crushed the top half of the high-tech remote. The cars returned to their original shapes and the giant robot, apparently connected to the small device, began falling to pieces.

Adam spat the foul tasting plastic from his mouth and growled deeply in his chest. The connection to his sense of smell had returned when Adam's conscious control had disappeared. He smelled the fear of prey. Prey meant meat and meat meant the pain would stop. His zeroed in on Control Freak like a shark scenting blood. He sprang forward as only predatory animals can, quick beyond thought, and slammed muzzle first into a transparent black wall. Adam reacted with unreasoning violence and tried to dig through the wall. When that didn't work he tried to break it by hitting it repeatedly. _**Adam, calm down**_ a voice sounded in his rage addled brain. It was like a drop of soap hitting oil stained water. The rage and animal instinct cleared enough for his human mind to reassert control. He forced himself to sit back on his haunches and lower his head in a show of submission.

Raven floated down from the night sky with her hood pulled over her head. Her eyes glowed white with otherworldly power and her cape flapped dramatically behind her. Adam felt an unfamiliar warmth stir in his chest when he saw her. He tried to convey his thoughts to her but he couldn't utilize their connection the way she had to clear his mind. He chuffed in exasperation at his own helplessness.

"Adam, is that you in there?" she asked. He nodded his furry head in response. He would have loved to talk to her, but if he changed enough to actually speak he would be standing there naked as a newborn. "Oh, I see." Adam felt a brief stab of panic. Had she heard him thinking? "Your thoughts are so loud I can hardly help hearing them." Well then she could take over the villain so he could go get some clothes. "You made the mess, you can help clean it up." She said emotionlessly. He chuffed again, but this time it was amusement that caused the noise. She was bossier than he remembered. She gave him a sidelong look when that thought crossed his mind. He gave her a "doggie smile" complete with his tongue lolling out of his mouth.

Adam walked along with her as she levitated Control Freak to the nearest police station. He had passed out when Adam tried to take a bite out of him and hadn't woken up yet. "Where did you go after you left the Lexcorp island?" Adam sent her a stream of images with corresponding impressions. His request for leave from the Justice League and from Debra's team. The months of isolation and feverish study. Then Batman's request for help and his subsequent work as a police officer. Then his run-in with the Court of Owls and his escape to Jump City. "You really get around." she said appreciatively. Adam sent her a question in reply, what had she been up to since they had last seen each other? "Not much. We visited Starfire's home planet, fought the Gordanians. Just your normal everyday kind of stuff." she deadpanned. Adam gave a series of chuffing laughs at the idea of five people, no longer teenagers but not truly adults, making the difference between victory and defeat in an interstellar war. It really was a strange world he lived in. Adam glanced at a bank clock and realized how late it was. Once Control Freak was safely behind bars he would go back to his room and get some sleep. From the tired look on Raven's face it would be better for everyone if he didn't push the issue before they'd both had some sleep.

"You know I can still hear you, right?" Adam concentrated on the image of one of those technical difficulty signs that used to replace lost TV signals. He was going to have to be very careful about what he thought with Raven around. Very careful.


	4. Chapter 4

Gotham PD Chapter 4

The wizened old woman sat behind her spare but imposing walnut colored desk as one of her household staff escorted her guest into the room. She wasn't accustomed to this sort of thing. The Court of Owls had in-house assassins for a very good reason, it limited their illicit contacts and their exposure to unstable elements. But the situation had become desperate, perhaps more desperate than any time since the Court had established a nest in Gotham. The majority of their Talons were either away from their control or had been destroyed outright. The Batman was threatening their financial and political anchors in the city and the police were showing unaccountably good job performance since the GCPD had cleaned house. She no longer had any long term contacts in the department. Building new contacts had ground to a halt after their first potential recruit had turned into a monster and tried to eat them.

Yes, that had been a first for the Court of Owls. Nearly being eaten by a 23 year old werewolf with delusions of being a police officer. Just thinking it made Cecile Moreau cringe in fear and disgust. They had insinuated themselves into the echelons of power, amassed enormous wealth, and pushed the boundaries of science to create supersoldiers. All of it had meant so little against one magically enhanced young man. Magic was a blind spot that had nearly cost them all their lives and they couldn't afford such an opening. None of their cultivated resources had connections to the world of magic so they had to hire outside talent. That talent came in the form of a man in a distinctive red suit. Well, perhaps not a man in the traditional sense, Johnny Sorrow had been a man once upon a time but he had become something else, something horrible. Above the collar of the suit was a red mask hanging in the open air as if attached to an invisible head.

"Mr. Sorrow, please, have a seat." the elderly woman said without a hint of the deep nervousness she felt in her voice.

"No, I think I'll stand." That was not a good sign. His refusal to obey her, even in such a small and standard nicety, indicated he was trying to take the lead in their relationship. She was the employer, he was the employee. If he took the power in the dynamic away from her it wouldn't be too much different from blackmail or a protection racket. "Pay me money or I stop protecting you." She couldn't allow that.

"Sit down, or you can leave. I'll simply fins someone else who can help me with my problem."

"Hahaha, alright, alright." He sat in the chair and crossed one leg. His voice sounded wrong, like it was passing through an old phonograph first.

"I'm looking for someone familiar with magic who will guard against threats of the mystical persuasion. I have been told that your..." she tried to think of a word less insulting than disfigurement, "history makes you an ideal candidate."

"My history, oh yes, my history. If you need spells of protection I can do that. Boring but I can do it. Of course, I'll need some bodies, nice and fresh, still breathing is best."

"Human bodies?" She asked. Sorrow came forward, almost out of his chair and his arms went out wide to grip the edges of her desk.

"OF COURSE!" Mrs. Moreau flinched backwards in her chair but didn't back down. "Humans are the only bodies that work."

"Why do you need human bodies?" she pressed.

"Magic can be done in many ways. My way needs bodies, the more the better. With five I can protect a building from whatever nasty beasties decide to come after you." Revulsion welled up, bitter, in Cecile Moreau's throat. This thing was evil in a way she only barely understood. But she really didn't have anyone else to call for this sort of work. Most of the more infamous magic users had been killed a few years back when a vigilante named Sam went wholesale on the villains of the world. Sorrow had come back on the radar only a month or so ago when he tangled with the JSA in the Congo and nearly burned half of it down. It had made international news.

"It can be arranged, Mr. Sorrow. Do you have any preferences about the quality of these bodies?"

#

"You can hear everything I think and you want me to let you take a physical stroll through my head? I'm gonna have to veto that one." Adam said, trying to keep the screening image of an Employees Only sign foremost in his mind so Raven wouldn't hear any stray thoughts.

"It's the only way I can think of to figure out what's wrong with your magic. The curse of lycanthropy returns your body to a perfectly healthy state so it can't be physical. That means it has to be either mental or spiritual. Either way my mirror can help figure out what's wrong." Raven had taken Adam into the sparring dojo and was sitting opposite Adam on a mat. She had taken him through a guided meditation session to try teasing out any mental blocks. No progress there. So she decided to do what she always did when meditation just wasn't cutting it. The mirror could be attuned to anyone and it was a powerful tool for repairing damage and healing mental injuries. But there were risks. The last time she'd used it Cyborg and Beast Boy had nearly been trapped there for eternity. Of course, if they hadn't barged into her room, started touching her things, that never would have happened.

"You said this mirror would make the interior of my mind as real as physical objects. There's more in my head than just bad memories and warped emotions. I had access to spells and rituals that the world hadn't seen since before the Tower of Babel collapsed. Spells like that have a life of their own and physically incarnating them would be a Bad Idea."

"As long as you have control it won't be a problem. Because it's your mind you have power there. And I'll be there to help if you need it. Trust me." Adam's mental block slipped and Raven felt his fear. Not for himself, he was concerned for her. And then a small surge of panic as Adam realized he was genuinely concerned for her well-being. Raven had gained some insight into his psychology, he had been effectively isolated for most of his life and the few times he'd opened up to others things had gone poorly. He was understandably soured on the idea of connecting with other people on the emotional level.

"Alright." Adam said with a generous amount of resignation.

"Alright and…?" Raven prompted.

"Alright and thank you." Adam said, his ego stinging.

"Alright, thank you, and…?" Raven had to hide a smile. Revenge was a dish best served cold, like ice cream. And like ice cream it tasted so very sweet.

"Don't push it." Adam growled. Raven felt a little disappointed that she couldn't push him further, he was genuinely angry with her for extracting the thank you, but she went and got her mirror without teasing Adam again.

"We need to attune it to you." Raven started to explain. Adam put his thumb on his incisor and pressed down. His fang easily poked a hole in his skin and he quickly squeezed a few drops on the reflective surface of the mirror. "….OK. You didn't have to bleed on my mirror."

"Really? That's usually how attunement works."

"Maybe a thousand years ago. All you had to do was put your hand on it for a few seconds."

"Give me a break. It worked didn't it?" Adam licked the pad of his thumb to clean the blood off it. Raven just sighed.

"Let's just get this over with." She set it on the floor between them and they both put a hand on the edge. Adam felt the world around him twist and his view of the mirror expanded. Then he was falling inside a dark tornado, his stomach doing backflips. Then he hit the ground back first. And the air left his lungs in a whoosh. Raven landed lightly on her feet half a dozen paces away. When Adam opened his eyes he was greeted by a depressingly familiar fluorescent lighting and stainless steel walls. He was in the experimental wing of Cadmus Laboratories, the place he spent most of his childhood and teenage years.

"Hell. Your mirror dropped me into my own personal hell." Adam said, too depressed to be angry.

"The landscape reflects your subconscious. What is this place?"

"I just told you." Adam got back to his feet, all his earlier brashness gone. "But at least I know my way around." His memory told him he was at the end of the cell block where the experimental subjects were kept. If this was some kind of meaning linked landscape he figured he should start with his own cell. Raven floated next to him, dark eyes taking in everything from the project names on the cell doors to the strange patterns of the tiles on the floors. As an empathy she could feel Adam's emotions and everything he was projecting now was bad. Fear, disgust, contempt, hate, and the shadows of remembered pain. She could feel it almost as keenly as he remembered it. Lines of fire crossed her abdomen and jolts of impact plunged deep into her chest and stomach. She wasn't aware of it but Adam was remembering the first time a Cadmus scientist had vivisected him. He'd been 12 years old and they had opened him up like an animal and started poking and prodding his internal organs. Adam was too caught up in memories to notice but his hands were shaking badly. He didn't even notice when he slid the door of his own cell open.

Raven saw the project name on the door and everything slid into place for her. When she'd first met Adam he'd been calling himself Shift, and the words written on the door said "Project Shift". Horror pooled in her mind and heart. She had training to help people deal with their emotions and her powers made her even better at it. But sometimes she had to be a person to the people she was helping rather than a therapist. "How old were you?" she asked before they stepped into the darkness of Adam's old room.

"Ten." He said. They moved into the space and the darkness parted to reveal a large wolf laying in the corner of a plain metal box. The beast was skin and bones with tufts of fur missing and cataract gray eyes. Its lips peeled back from yellowed teeth and it snarled at them. Adam took one step over and batted it on the nose. It whimpered and put its head back on the floor.

"Is that what I think it is?"

"My lycanthropy."

"Why is it so… withered?" she asked.

"The curse feeds on human flesh and blood, which I have refrained from. It's starved and weak but it simply won't die. At least this way I stay in the driver's seat." Adam took one last look around his old room but he didn't find anything else so he walked out and locked the beast back in. There were other places he could look around for irregular things. She'd said the damage would be visible on this walk through his mind but so far he hadn't seen anything out of place. That vile hallway was exactly the same as… he had been walking too long. He should have reached the elevators by now but it was still just rows of cells. He checked the names. "We're in a looped space." Adam muttered.

"It's your mind. It listens to you." Raven reminded him. Adam thought about it for a moment and tried calling on his magic. The pain was immediate and excruciating, but his idea worked. The scenery changed from the inside of Cadmus to the darkened plain to the inside of the White Tower. The black and red tiled floors and the heavy silk curtains were still blurry but they felt like home to him. A phonograph was playing a slow blues tune that he couldn't quite place but it felt comforting. The pain faded when he stopped trying to pull in magical energy and the room around him came into clear focus. "Please don't do that again." Raven said, her voice hoarse and strained. Her gray skin had gone even paler and Adam realized that she was getting some of his pain over the strange link they had.

"Sorry." He said. As apologies went it wasn't the most elegant but Adam wasn't exactly in practice. He walked around the familiar room looking for things out of place, books that shouldn't be there, furniture out of place. Nothing. "I thought you said I would be able to find the damage if I did this."

"It should be obvious if it causes you that much pain." Raven said, recovering from the shock as time went on.

"Well there's nothing obvious here." Adam said, a little angry about what was apparently another dead end. He kicked a chair over and the back half of the room shattered like cheap glass. Beyond the jagged edges of the broken space was a hazy gray plane and the sound of rattling chains. Adam felt a little embarrassed and declined to look Raven in the eyes when she gave him an "I told you so" look. But that slight emotional tension was snapped when other, less ordinary noises started coming out of that gray void. The noises were equal parts wet, low sounds that felt more like vibrations, and the unsettling grinding of teeth on bone. There was something alive in that misty gray void and Adam had the feeling it was distinctly unfriendly.

"That's where the damage is. I can feel it."

"Yeah, and I can feel something else in there. Probably the spells I still had in inventory when Trigon cut my ties to Leviathan." When Adam spoke that name aloud there was a stirring in the mist and the rattle of chains increased. "Can we, um, die in here?" Adam asked, his survival instinct jamming frozen needled into the back of his neck.

"Maybe. I've never heard of it happening but that doesn't mean it's impossible." Raven said, picking up on Adam's survival oriented fear.

"Well, you're probably about to find out." Adam said before he stepped into the mist. There was no substance to the mist, no moisture or coolness, and absolutely no smells. But the further he walked into the mist the more it cleared from his vision. Raven floated somewhere above him, he couldn't see her but he could feel the active use of her power. From the moment he'd met her he'd been able to feel her magic in a way that had bugged him. The first time they'd met he'd provoked her into using her powers on him and they had simply slipped off him like water running over rocks. Or he'd thought it had. Ever since then he'd been able to sense if she was actively using her powers nearby. That ability had only strengthened after their psychic bond had been formed and now he could pinpoint where she was flying even though he couldn't see her. That ability was the only thing that kept him from being snatched up like she was. He felt it when Raven was suddenly jerked sideways and away from him and he reacted instantly. The black tentacle, about as big around as his hips, swept under him just after he leaped into the air. He noted which direction the octopoid limb retreated and made a mad dash toward it, claws sprouting from his fingers as he ran. He couldn't tell exactly where Raven was now because she wasn't using her powers but from the direction she had initially moved and the direction the tentacle had come from he could tell where the main body should be. He had to dodge a few more lashing limbs on the way but he made it to the grotesque mound of flesh, eyes, and teeth that had Raven wrapped in a cocoon of onyx flesh. The creature almost looked familiar, though all these eldritch abominations looked alike to him.

He could see one of Raven's feet sticking out from the cocoon and he decided to cut her free first, shouting a mental warning that he was about to slice open her living prison. His claws tore through it so easily he had to pull his arm back before he tore into Raven too. The flesh fell away from the sorceress and he floated back into the air.

"This is your mind, you have the power here!" Raven reminded him, proving that she could still hear his thoughts. Testing out a theory he held out a hand and tried to command the monster to stop attacking. He put his formidable will behind that command but he felt a slimy and wrong presence in his head pushing back against him. Then something sank into his mind like rows of sharp teeth and he fell to his knees.

Raven gasped as the pain flooded over their link but she threw up a mental block before it could interrupt her powers. She was glad she did because Adam was hit with a tentacle hard enough that she heard bones breaking. She winced in sympathy but didn't go to help him. Instead she used her magic to wrap one of the silver chains and threw it at the monster. An insect-like screech swept out from one of the fanged maws on the asymmetrical body of the horror and the mist cleared. From up high Raven could see the grooves in the stony ground that formed a powerful binding circle and what appeared to be piles of bones. She saw Adam throw himself at the monster again, this time he cut through any attacks and simply vanished into the side of the pile of flesh.

Raven watched the impossible body of the creature heave and buck and screech in pain. Then it went still and started to dissolve, deflating like a balloon. Adam pulled himself clear of it, he was completely covered in a dark fluid that smelled like rotting fish. Raven kept her distance.

"That. Was. Disgusting." He said, shaking black slime from his arms and trying to wipe it from his face.

"Why didn't you try to make it stop? Everything in here is you so it answers to you." Raven said.

"I tried. What do you think I was doing when the thing hit me?" Adam said, spitting at the end to get the creature's blood out of his mouth.

Raven's eyes went wide and she looked back at what was left of the monster. If it hadn't listened to him then it wasn't actually part of him. Or at least, it wasn't wholly part of him. When her anger had run out of control she hadn't been able to simply command it away because her anger had been connected to her father. If Adam had commanded this thing to stop and it hadn't then it hadn't come from him. She looked around at the piles of bones and remembered that Adam had said there would be manifestations of spells in his head but they hadn't encountered anything like that. Maybe this invader ate them? That would account for the bones. But that circle, it was magnificent. The complexity and elegance of it were beyond belief and far beyond her abilities, far beyond Adam's abilities as well. Magic circles were anchoring points for permanent spells or a focus for spells the mage couldn't pull off on their own or both. Raven could tell by the design that it was for binding and siphoning power but she had no idea what language was written around the border or woven through the six pointed star so she couldn't tell the specific mechanics or purpose. But she'd been here before, briefly, when she saved Adam from killing himself trying to hold onto the Leviathan. That had to be the spell that kept it contained and let the person draw from it to fuel magic.

Adam was kneeling by one of the piles of bones and picking through the remains. He pulled out what looked like an absurdly long femur and he ran his fingers over the rough surface. The markings were marred by the bites of what had eaten it but he could still recognize the spell. "Well, so much for the big bad spell incarnations I was afraid of. That freak ate them." Adam said, confirming Raven's suspicions. Adam stood up and started walking toward her. When his food touched the outer boundary line a dark haze appeared before Raven. Something massive and serpentine with huge yellow eyes. The image vanished as quickly as it came with Adam seeming not to notice. Raven took a steadying breath.

"Did you recognize it?" she asked, glancing back at the swiftly vanishing corpse.

"Maybe, but I couldn't tell you where I recognized it from." Adam said absentmindedly. His focus had switched from the remains around him to the empty space inside the circle. He reached, gently and carefully for his magic. Fire and lightening erupted inside the circle mirroring the pain that Adam felt when he failed to access his magic. But Adam pulled back before the energy built enough to reach either Raven or himself. "I think we've found the problem." Adam said, an uncertain and hopeful smile on his face as he looked to Raven. She had her normal blank expression on her face while wheels turned behind her eyes.

"This is where the Leviathan was, wasn't it?"

"Yeah. The circle was supposed to keep it dormant and grounded while the chains siphoned power. This isn't just in my head you know, this is a real place that's supposed to be safely out of sync with any other dimensions. Apparently my mind was the only way for anyone to get in. Academically interesting but not really relevant to fixing my problem."

"Actually, it is relevant. You're connected to this place and your magic has to move through here before you can use it. Without something here to act as a conduit you can't access any of the power you're pulling in."

"Great! So I just have to find some ungodly powerful supernatural being, drag it through my head, take it here, and lock it up with spells I have no idea how to repair."

"Sarcasm doesn't actually help. Believe me." Raven said.

"What else can I do?" Adam asked, more angry than curious.

"Well you could stop feeling sorry for yourself." Adam opened his mouth like he was about to speak but shut his mouth. He looked at Raven then back at the circle.

"Alright. So what now? Just walk away and forget about ever doing magic?" Raven floated down to the ground, walked over to Adam and cuffed the back of his head. Adam went from surprised to spitting mad in less than a second. He bared his fangs at Raven without making the conscious decision to do so, his eyes going from amber to pale yellow in pure reactionary anger. Raven, apparently not afraid of the monster staring back at her, flicked Adam on the nose. He started shaking, finding it more difficult than usual to not act on his aggression.

"Don't you think you've got enough problems without the temptation of magic?" Raven said, something in her tone made Adam pull back slightly. She put her fingertips lightly on his forehead and the strong urge to commit physical violence lessened. Raven was using her empathic abilities to take some of the burden of his curse.

"I've done fine on my own before." Adam said after pulling away from Raven's cool fingers.

"Wraith sent me your file before he left. I know about Prometheus. You haven't done fine on your own. You need people around or the pressure just builds and builds until you explode and someone gets hurt. Or worse." Anger flared in Adam's eyes again but only for a moment, it was swiftly replaced by shame and frustration.

"Where are you going with this?" He said, deflecting.

"I'm not going to tell you how to get your magic back unless you promise a few things." She looked at him with a sad expression. "You need to talk about that place we were in before, the one with the prison cells." Adam visibly flinched. "And you need to make friends and keep in regular contact with someone."

"I'm not an alcoholic." Adam said defensively, uncomfortable with the implications behind her recommendations. Raven ignored his comment.

"How long were you alone in Gotham?" Adam looked away. Raven stepped around to look him in the eyes. "How long before you went looking for a fight? Or intentionally put yourself in danger?"

"You talked to Batman." Adam stated resentfully.

"No, but for putting you in that kind of situation, I'm going to." And then Adam saw genuine anger on her face. Not the hot flash of temper but a deep and abiding anger that had the awful force of reason behind it. And he was touched. In his relatively short life he'd seen a lot of anger, most of it directed at him for one reason or another. But this was the first time he could remember someone being angry on his behalf.

"And if I say yes? You'll give me my magic back?"

"No." she said. Adam felt his heart drop. "But I can help you find a way around this." She motioned at the ruined containment spell behind him. "Why is it so important for you to have magic back?"

"Because I can't do anything like I am now. Everything I've done since I lost my magic has had almost zero results and I've almost gotten myself and other people killed." Adam looked her in the eyes when he said the last few words. "I'm in a high stakes game and I'm out of aces."

"You know I can still hear your thoughts." Adam had completely forgotten about their mental link in the heat of battle and the subsequent emotional roller coaster. "Be honest." She prompted gently. Adam took a deep breath and forced himself to say what she had probably already heard in his head.

"I've never not had magic, ever since I was little. I feel…crippled. Useless." _And there's too much going on for me to be either._

"Well, that's a start. Let's get out of here."

#

"What is that?" James Gordon asked. The thing in the cage looked like a dog dressed in some kind of Alice in Wonderland uniform. It was shouting nonsense rhymes and growling at anyone who came near it.

"Not a clue Commissioner." Officer Susan Davis said, pulling her uniform back into some semblance of proper order. She'd been the one to drag the thing in off the street where it had attacked several passersby. The holding and emergency call areas of the precinct were going insane with calls and people who seemed to be strung out on some new drug. Among this little thunderstorm of disorderly conduct Commissioner James Gordon directed his troops and tried to get ahead of the inevitable consequences of this sudden flood.

"Sir! You need to hear this." A detective in a suit yelled, running toward his boss with a cellphone in one hand. "It's the 43rd Precinct!" Gordon took the cell phone and put it to his ear.

"Commissioner! We're under siege in here. Send backup, send everyone!" the person shouting on the other side of the call was the Lieutenant in charge of the Precinct and his words were punctuated by gunfire and angry shouting.

"We've got a code 999 at Precinct 43!" Gordon said loudly enough to cut through the noise around him. Immediately about half of the officers began checking their weapons and filing toward the room where they stored the riot gear. While they were getting ready Gordon got calls from three other stations and there were reports of strange things coming in from patrols. Gotham City didn't have a siege protocol but James Gordon knew he needed to start putting one together right then and there. And his first order of business was to fire up the Bat-Signal.


	5. Chapter 5

Gotham PD Chapter 5

Adam Kriticos had never felt more out of place than he did at that moment. He was surrounded by many small furry animals all meowing and barking for his attention. There was even a small kitten in his hands licking one of his fingers. "This is the worst idea I've ever had."

"It was my idea." Raven said. She looked out of place too. She was dressed in civilian clothes and she had her hair and chakra stone covered by a baseball cap, but she still didn't look like an average person.

"Right." Adam said. He put the kitten back in its cage, hating himself a little as he did so. "And I went along with it."

"I told you, you need a substitute link. For that you need a familiar." Raven tickled one of the kittens through its cage, a very small smile on her face.

"Familiars are supposed to be selected by ritual. If I try to bind a familiar that isn't compatible-."

"I know. But since you're indestructible it won't matter."

"I'm not immune to pain." He reminded her.

"Look, I told you how to get your magic back. You said you wanted to do it. So are you complaining because you don't want to do it or just because you want to complain?"

"Please stop reading my mind." His voice was close to pleading. Even with his degree of mental conditioning he couldn't stop every stray thought that his mind spat out. He was actually certain that she had heard a number of embarrassing thoughts already but she hadn't reacted to them in order to spare his feelings.

"I told you, your thoughts are so loud that I can't help but hear them. I'm actually getting a headache being this close to you." Adam sighed in exasperation. He picked up another cat, this one being much mellower than the kitten. It just stared back at him complacently as he held it. Adam put it back quickly. He was sure that he didn't want something so lazy as his familiar.

"C'mon. You don't have some psychic version of earmuffs you can put on?"

"I've never had this problem before. What about this one?" Raven picked up an adolescent cat, black with gray stripes and green eyes. It gave her a look, not the placid stare of the adults or the fascination of the kittens but something more undefinably feline. Adam reached for it and it glared at him. He glared back and grabbed it by the scruff of the neck. He'd expected it to lash out with claws but it stayed still. Intrigued, Adam set it on the ground to see what it would do. The cat immediately attacked his leg with both claws and teeth. Adam didn't even flinch at the minor hurts the claws inflicted through his jeans. A patient creature, one capable of at least short term planning.

"I think we have a winner." Adam said. "Patient and willing to go to the mat. What's the name on the card?" Raven flipped over the plastic coated card but didn't say anything. She looked back at the cat then back to the card a few times.

"You're not going to believe this." She tilted the card toward him and he blinked stupidly at the name.

"Snuggles? Really? Forget that, I'm renaming him." Adam said, peeling the cat from his calf.

* * *

Batman had been working on cleaning out several nests the Court had kept hidden away when he heard the chatter over the police bands. It had erupted almost all at once at multiple points in the city. Reports of strange, almost unbelievable creatures, creatures that made no logical sense, were coming in from all over Gotham. Batman had to turn the radio off and let the computer map the locations of the sightings. There were only two possible explanations. The first was that a dimensional rift had randomly appeared for no apparent reason. The second was that the Court of Owls had started dabbling in magic in response to Adam's appearance on the playing board. "Alfred, lock down Wayne Manor for the rest of the night."

"Of course, sir. And Master Damian?"

"Tell him to suit up and meet me on the roof of the Major Crimes Unit. And…let him bring his sword."

* * *

"Raven and Adam have been petting the store for a very long time. May we go and join them?" Starfire asked. Nightwing and Cyborg looked at her with wide and somewhat frightened eyes.

"Raven went somewhere with a guy and you want to go interrupt them? I don't think so." Cyborg said.

"Star, I think it would be best to leave them alone for a while." Nigthwing agreed.

"Oh, then this is a date?" Starfire asked, for once completely on target. The guys weren't as sure. Having known Raven for so long they weren't sure she understood the concept of a date. But from what they'd seen there was some kind of connection between Raven and Adam that extended beyond professional courtesy.

"Yeah, Raven on a date." Beast Boy said sarcastically.

"Most wonderful! When she returns we will celebrate with the traditional Tamaranian meal of Blarglemoot. Robin, where is the nearest creature on this planet with two heads?"

* * *

"What if I end up with two heads?" Adam asked, his nerves getting the better of him. He'd laid out the magical array himself and had Raven double-check it for any mistakes or improper symbols. The cat formerly named Snuggles was sitting inside a pet carrier next to him, unconcerned about the upcoming ritual.

"You're not going to grow a second head." Raven assured him. The fear and anticipation trickling past Adam's mental block was enough to make her uneasy. But unless the cat they'd picked was completely unsuitable there was no reason anything could go wrong. Raven's head rocked back when an image crashed into her mind. An almost apocalyptic scene with a huge serpent coiled among the ruins of a sprawling metropolis. The buildings had been crushed and corroded with countless dead buried beneath the rubble. The sky was completely black with no stars, moon or sun. The only illumination came from the melted stone and lingering fires that the creature's breath had caused.

Raven's eyes had gone wide and distant, her breathing was shallow and quick. Adam saw the change and he focused hard on something pleasant, something peaceful and full of hope. The image of a small chapel with a tabernacle and half a dozen old scratched pews. That was the image and memory he wanted to send to Raven and she did see it. But the next image, one he associated so closely with the one he was focusing on, just slipped in. The image of a girl of maybe 19 or 20 with red hair and freckles smiling at him in the morning light shining through the stained glass windows.

If anything the second image hit her harder than the first and Raven dropped to her knees, her hood dropping over her head when her hands hit the dirt. Adam was at her side the moment her knees started looking shaky. Raven was an empath of rare ability and she was used to the stress of foreign emotions and memories. But the link she had with Adam and the sheer power of a mind so steeped in arcane secrets made the sensations too real, too intense. Being jerked from horror to joy so quickly and with such intensity nearly knocked her out.

"Raven!?" Adam was shaking her gently. He'd shoved all of his memories and emotions down deep, trying to keep anything from putting any more strain on her.

"We need to finish the binding." She gasped out. "The thoughts and memories are getting louder." Adam understood. Without waiting for Raven he took his place in the ritual space and opened a cut on his palm with a silver knife. He dripped blood in a circle around the small cage and pricked the knife against the cat's paw pad until a drop of its blood was added to his own. The array painted on the ground and Raven's presence did the rest. Red energy the color of fresh blood swirled around Adam and the cat and soaked into them. Adam reached his hand to the animal as the ritual required. The cat reached out a paw through the thin metal bars of the cage. Adam took hold of it and some of the light passed between them. The cat's body swelled and it burst the cage. It grew larger and larger until it was nearly the size of a full grown mountain lion. Adam's body grew darker as black energy flowed into him, remnants of the chaos magic he had wielded in the not so distant past. His skin turned gray and his nails became black claws, but his eyes burned a pale gold. Magic sparked and crackled around Adam and the beast, Raven was tossed back and out of the swirling power but not before her own magic was added to the mix.

There was a discharge of power as the binding was completed, a small shockwave that swept out from the master and familiar and over the empty ground of the badlands they had chosen for the ritual. Raven felt the pressure on her mind ease as the burden of Adam's thoughts was taken from her. The link between them was still there, if anything it was stronger than ever, but she no longer felt Adam against her mind like the pressure of the ocean against the shore.

"I think it worked." Adam said. Raven opened her eyes and saw Adam, back to looking human again. The cat was back to a normal size, only slightly larger than it had been before the ritual. The cat let out a long meow and looked from Raven to Adam. She saw Adam blush and glare angrily at the cat. "That's the first thing you say to me? Really? Not a 'hi' or 'pleased to meet you'?" The cat let out a much shorter meow and she saw Adam's teeth grind together. "Don't think you can start giving me crap just because you can talk now."

"Nice to see you're getting along with your familiar." Raven said dryly. "Have you picked a name yet?"

"Yeah. I was thinking he could be-" the cat jumped onto Adam's head and batted him on the nose. It let out a low growl. "Fine then spit it out already." Adam waited patiently as the cat made a series of sounds that went on for half a minute. When it was done he closed his eyes and shook his head in self-pity. "There is no way I'm calling you that."

"What did he say?" Raven asked.

"Wait, you can't understand him?"

"No. He's making cat noises. I don't speak hairball." Raven said with bone dry humor. The cat made a noise halfway between a sneeze and hiss. Adam grabbed the familiar by the scruff of the neck and glared into the green eyes.

"Watch. Your. Tongue." Adam said slowly and with a bloodcurdling amount of malice. The cat didn't exactly quail in terror, but it was close. "He said his name is Sextus Faustus Marcellinus, lord of the fourth corridor, master gladiator, and sixth son of old Felix. And that I, a commoner among my own kind, should treat him with respect and deference." Adam said once he had calmed down. "I'm just going to call him Faust."

"Right. Name the cat after the most famous sorcerer in history, famous for the fact that he sold his soul to the devil and was ripped into tiny little pieces."

"In my defense, the name itself means 'blessed with fortune'. And it is his name, or so he says. But, before I do anything else I want to try to cast a spell. See if this remedy was worth the risk." Adam reached into his shirt and pulled out a small silver medal. He'd wrapped the poisonous silver in a piece of cloth so it wouldn't burn him. It was his most prized possession, his only means of opening the way to his Tower. Millennia of spells and artifacts, history and relics, all locked away in the White Tower. His St. Jude medal was the only key to open the lock he'd placed on the Tower before he lost his magic.

Raven watched as Adam gently unwrapped the tiny medal and held it on the end of its chain. It seemed to shine just a little too brightly in the dim moonlight. She felt it when the portal opened and the powerful binding spell fell apart. She couldn't see it, the only thing visible to her eyes was the dark energy that was blocking out the landscape all around them. Then the darkness spiraled away and revealed a moonlit forest presided over by a mountain of a tower. The monolithic white building had a weight she could feel bleeding over into the psychic plane. It was heavily warded and inside she knew there would be powerful artifacts. She'd once seen the accumulated knowledge of a centuries old dragon named Malchior, she had a feeling that the library inside that tower would make Malchior look like an apprentice sorcerer who hadn't learned to conjure fire.

Raven felt Adam take her hand in his own and pull her through the portal. Faust was riding on the werewolf's shoulder when they passed into the other world and she saw that its eyes now matched the luminescent amber of Adam's. New scents tickled her nose, green smells that she had no frame of reference for. The trees of the forest had leaves that shone silver in the light of the full moon. The light was very bright, even for a full moon. Raven looked up and saw not one moon but a belt of them stretching across the sky. In the center was a fully illuminated moon and on either side stretching our below the horizon were moons gradually phasing to complete darkness. The grass under her feet was soft and colored deep blue. She heard all sorts of creatures calling out to each other in the forest.

"What do you think?" Adam asked. She felt him open up their bond on his side and his emotions and thoughts were open to her. He was happy, almost giddy with the feeling of success. That was tempered by a nervousness about her and her opinion of this place.

"How did you find this place?" Raven asked, her own discomfort with Adam's sudden display of trust preventing her from giving a straight answer.

"It was part of the legacy I inherited. Everyone who was bound to the Leviathan was also connected to this place. When I first found it there was nothing alive. I like to think I've made an improvement." Adam whistled toward the woods and a couple of small furry creatures with large ears hopped out. They were a combination between a house cat and a rabbit with tawny brown fur and big expressive eyes. Faust the cat looked down on them with haughty disdain but Raven felt that girly part of her melt at the sight of creatures so small and cute. She was able to restrain herself from devolving into girlish giggling and grabbing up both of them like stuffed animals, but it was a close thing.

"How did you make all this?" she asked, hoping he couldn't use their link to read her emotions.

"Alchemy. Everything here is a chimera of one kind or another. And some of them are a great deal more dangerous than these little ones." Adam realized he was still holding Raven's hand and let it drop. "But anyone who has my permission to be here is safe."

"You made this with magic? I can't imagine the price of something like this."

"I paid up front." Adam said, taking insult at the reminder that all magic comes with consequences. Doctor Fate and Zatanna had both talked down to him like that, assuming that he was bartering away his soul. Raven felt the painful buzz of old pain and humiliation through their bond and realized she'd inadvertently hit a nerve.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to accuse you of anything."

"That's more than I can say for most of the League." Adam said, letting his anger drain away. "How's the mental screaming?" Adam asked, remembering how his thoughts and emotions had impacted her just before the familiar binding ritual.

"Much better."

"Good. Shielding my thoughts was getting really annoying."

"You could have used some more practice." Raven muttered. If Adam had been a normal human he wouldn't have heard her. So he pretended he hadn't heard. He didn't want to talk about Caitlin any more than Raven wanted to hear about Adam's romantic track record. Adam showed her a few more of the animals and explained why the plants looked the way they did. Then he started to give her a tour of the Tower. The only reason he didn't finish the tour was because he couldn't get Raven to leave the library on the ground floor.

"Is this an autographed copy of Historia Regum Britanniae?" she asked, touching the book reverently.

"My predecessors all had one thing in common, they were fastidious collectors. Maybe I should audition for that hoarding show." Adam said, trying to snap Raven out of her magical geek episode.

"What's this in the margins? It looks like some kind of Gaelic."

"Merlin's corrections. Apparently Geoffrey of Monmouth took some artistic liberties." Adam said. He may not have been the most mentally stable person but his memory was very nearly perfect. For example, he knew that if she went up two shelves she could find Merlin's treatise on alchemy complete with instructions on the creation of a Philosopher's Stone.

"Merlin's alive?" Raven asked sharply, suddenly very nervous.

"No, but that hasn't slowed him down much. He died shortly after Camelot fell but his shade shows up every so often. Or so says Doctor Fate anyway. He never bothered to pay me a visit."

"How many books are here?" Raven asked, no expression on her face but a hungry look in her eyes. Adam shrugged.

"I never bothered to count. Thousands at the very least. Not counting scrolls, tablets, beaten metal, or less traditional recording mediums." Adam suddenly perked up and almost ran over to the fireplace. He pried up an enormous slab of stone that formed the lintel piece and removed a small black book. He brushed the dust from its cover gently and Raven sensed a kind of affection in his actions.

"That's hers." Raven stated. Adam twitched like a beaten dog at the sight of a raised hand. "That's Caitlyn's." Raven pressed.

"Yes. She gave it to me the first time we met." The pain that she could feel coming from him was enough to incapacitate lesser men. She had a feeling that some of it was a result of his lycanthropy. Wolves in the wild mated for life and when their mate died they would starve themselves to death. But there was also a very human reason for what he was feeling, something more than an ill-fated romantic attachment.

"Have you told anyone else about what happened?" she asked, shifting gears from vague jealousy to empathic healer. Adam didn't answer, didn't even look at her. She put a hand on his arm and made him look her in the eyes. When he did, something happened that hadn't happened in a very long time. The golden glow of his eyes, an ever-present sign of his lycanthropy and an indicator of his temper, vanished entirely and revealed light green eyes. Raven wasn't sure, it was the better part of a decade ago when she had first met him, but she thought he'd had brown eyes. "You really need to."

"I don't have words for how much I don't want to talk about this."

"Then let me see it. Let me see what happened through your eyes." Her offer was in some ways more frightening than simply telling her what had happened. She was asking to sift through his memories. She would see everything he did and thought with perfect clarity. He'd had some experience with opening up to other people, confessing to a priest mostly. But this was something else entirely.

On the other hand, he wouldn't have to do much of anything other than say the word for her to see what she believed she needed to. Adam dropped the mental shields he'd thrown up as soon as his ability to use magic had returned and said, "Go ahead." It was probably the strangest sensation he'd ever experienced when Raven's soul-self, a construct of black energy in her shape, merged into his body. It was a vaguely warm sensation like sinking into water just slightly cooler than body temperature. He forced himself to hold still while the merger finished. When it did, Adam passed out, falling to the floor unconscious.

Raven's experience was drastically different. One of her powers was to project herself in astral form and connect to the minds of others. Entering Adam's body and mind was like walking into a sauna. The amount of magical energy in his body combined with the inhuman drive of his lycanthropy made it feel like some kind of mental fever. She made an effort to distinguish the boundaries between her cool, collected mind and his frantic, overheated personality.

Once she finished she homed in on the painful but bright memories that seemed to permanently revolve around the core of Shift's mind like moons orbiting a planet. She checked to make sure her guards were up and stepped into the memory. She experienced it as if she were physically in the room with Adam and Caitlyn. They were in a small chapel adjacent to a much larger church somewhere on the east coast. Adam was wearing the jeans and hoody that he had become infamous for while he was an active member of the Justice League. She was wearing a very conservative white skirt and a deep green dress shirt. Adam had this stunned look on his face and he was staring at the red-headed woman. She glanced at him and frowned.

"It's not polite to stare." She said. Adam snapped out of his trance and looked embarrassed. He turned around and stepped toward the door. "You don't have to leave." She said, trying to be friendly to someone who seemed unlikely to be a parishioner. "Just, eyes to the front." She nodded toward the tabernacle. Adam followed her gaze and she could feel the negative emotions spike in him though he gave no outward sign of them. Bitterness, anger, betrayal and a sense of unworthiness all mixed together into a particularly strong spiritual poison.

"That's not what I'm here for." The younger and darker version of Adam said, as much to himself as to her.

"There's nothing else to come here for." She said with certainty that outweighed her youth. Adam swayed back slightly, as if someone had given him a decent shove in the shoulder. Adam looked out the door into the main body of the church, obviously standing at some kind of moral crossroads and finding the choice painful. He looked back at Caitlyn with a longing that had nothing to do with her being a rather beautiful young woman. He looked at her like some people look at the pope, as a symbol of something infinitely better than their current lot in life.

Adam took a seat near the door, sitting in the small pew and casting glances between the tabernacle and Caitlyn. After a few short minutes he got up and started to leave. Caitlyn noticed and followed him out, genuflecting before she did. When they were both outside she held out her hand to him. "I'm Caitlyn."

"Adam." He said, shaking her hand gently, not because she looked fragile but because all of this felt surreal to him. Raven watched, keeping her own emotions tightly leashed. The scene shifted and she knew that this was several months later. Adam was wearing nice clothes. He'd found himself a suit and managed a passable imitation of a Windsor knot with the tie. Caitlyn was there and wearing a nice dress with a small piece of white cloth on her head.

"You don't have to do that." She said to him. Adam gave her a look that only a good friend or a boyfriend could get away with.

"I don't like people asking questions." He said.

"You shouldn't have to hide your flaws. Honestly it seems a bit like lying to put an illusion spell on your face when you're in church." Raven looked at Adam's face but didn't see anything wrong. Then he sighed and his left eye shimmered and was replaced by a ruined gray orb that looked burned. His other eye, his normal eye, was a chocolate brown.

"I'm not trying to lie. I just don't like explaining myself." He said. She held out her arm and he took it. They walked together into what looked like an Easter Vigil Mass. The scene skipped ahead again. Raven didn't try holding onto them because they flowed ahead the way Adam subconsciously prioritized them. This time Adam was standing outside the church and throwing magic at some wet, disgusting creatures that seemed distorted in his memory. Either they weren't important or Adam's mind couldn't fully comprehend the existence of these creatures. His magic slid off of them like water. Caitlyn was just inside the doors, gravely wounded but holding a knife stained with a black fluid. Adam looked like a picture of wrath, his one good eye glowing a very pale gold. Claws and fangs were in evidence and his magic sparked and bit at the air around him. His power burned the air, tore up the earth, and turned asphalt and street lamps to dust. But the creatures came on. Behind them was a man in a voluminous hood and cloak. Raven looked closely at him but he was distorted just like the creatures. Maybe the being in the cloak wasn't human either. The creatures slouched along, smoking as they trespassed on the church grounds but still alive and moving. Adam took one last, desperate look at Caitlyn who had taken on a gray pallor as more of her blood spilled on the marble floor. He turned back to the hooded thing and its minions and said something, she couldn't hear what the words were. His right eye leaked blood and she saw blood vessels burst, staining the sclera red. A black hole opening up in the world and pulled the creatures in along with their hooded and cloaked master. The loosened stone of the street and the debris produced during the struggle were pulled in as well. A moment later and all was silent. The hole closed and Adam dropped to his knees.

Raven walked closer to him and she saw that both of his eyes had been blinded. Both of them were filmed over by gray and partially covered by burned eyelids. Adam crawled back into the church, feeling his way through the doors and to Caitlyn. Raven wanted to move closer and hear what they were saying to each other but Adam's mind pushed back against her when she tried. The scene lasted another minute with Adam looking desperate and Caitlyn looking scared but composed. When Caitlyn slumped down on the marble floor Adam let out a scream of rage and loss so loud she was sure he tore something in his throat. Then he did something utterly grotesque. The lycanthrope took two fingers and tore his ruined eyes from their sockets and, heedless of things like modern medicine and blood-type compatibility, took Caitlyn's eyes and put them in his own head. Raven felt an echo of magic and Adam opened his new eyes to look down on his dead love. He left her body there, letting her stay in the church. He wept bloody tears and prayed silently that she would be accepted into Heaven. The memory ended and left Raven in a dark void. The sorceress detached herself from Adam and returned to her body. The process was even more uncomfortable than going in, the feverishness and strange exhilaration seeping into her mind.

Adam didn't directly experience any of it but he felt the uneasiness of a man standing with his soul bared to someone. When the dark figure of Raven emerged from him he felt a mix of relief and uncertainty. Which memories had she looked at? How did she feel about them?

"That explains a few things." Was all she said, refusing to meet Adam's eyes. In Raven's mind it was Caitlyn's eyes she was refusing to look at. "What were the things that attacked you, the things lead by that man in the cloak?" Though Adam hadn't known what memories she'd seen he immediately knew what she was taking about

"Bad things, evil things. Things powerful enough that they wouldn't be significantly deterred by sacred ground. Other than that I don't know."

"You don't know? How can you not know?" Raven was incredulous. Those monsters had murdered the woman he'd loved and he knew nothing?

"Because I couldn't find anything!" Shift shouted, pain and anger causing him to get right in her face as he yelled. He backed away immediately, shame clashing with his anger.

"Oh." Raven said, unable to say much else. They stood there awkwardly for several minutes, neither able to cope with the social minefield they'd wandered into. The cat was the first one to break the silence with a long and piteous meow. "What did he say?"

"That humans are stupid and needlessly complicated. At the moment I'm not sure if I can argue with him." Shift picked a book from the shelf and thumbed through it for a moment before putting it back on the shelf. Raven saw the muscles in his jaw clenching and unclenching like he was chewing on a thought. He looked her dead in the eyes, pinning her to the spot with the intensity of his stare. "I need to ask you something… personal."

"Okaaaay?" Raven said hesitantly.

"Why are you here? I'm not complaining but why bother helping me?"

"Because it's the right thing to do." She said easily.

"Is that the only reason?" Adam pressed. That was the crux of it, they both knew. That was the thing that had been hanging on the air since Adam had arrived in Jump City. They had a bond, a connection. But what was the nature of it, what did they feel for each other, and what did they plan to do about it? Those questions needed to be answered and they were both too stubborn and to introverted to answer them voluntarily. Tearing open Adam's old emotional wounds had given him the push he needed but Raven still languished in doubt an indecision. "I came to you for help when I could have gone to others who owed me favors because I wanted to see you. Ever since the island I haven't been able to get you out of my head." He admitted.

"I know. It's a side effect of mentally bonding with someone." Raven started to explain. Adam cut her off.

"You know that's not what I mean." Adam broke eye contact, looking down and away. "When we get back to the real world, would you have dinner with me?"

"Let me think about it." Raven's voice came out flat and emotionless. Adam found her answer to be unsatisfactory, both the answer itself and the way in which she gave it. But he simply would not push any further than that.

"Alright." Adam agreed. He started to say something else when his cell phone started ringing. "What is it, boss?" he said after seeing the Commissioner's number pop up.

"Officer Kriticos, we need you back here now! We have a serious situation on our hands. The city is being overrun with monsters and we need everyone we can get!"

"Can you be more specific about the monsters?"

"How should I know what they are?! I've never heard of dog-headed Shakespeare's before." Adam's eyes went wide. He hung up and turned to Raven with a horrified look on his face.

"I think I remember where I saw the giant octopus thing before." Raven seemed to perk up at that, thankful for a change of subject.

"Where?"

"The Subtle Realms."

**A/N: Story is still alive, just moving a bit slowly due to lack of time in real life.**


End file.
